The scope of this foul ‘De Anza rape allegations case’ initially caused my obstreperal lobe to throw both its claws in the air, exclaim “That’s it!“, bundle a few provisions in a bindle, and take to the rails. This morning, unexpectedly, it came shuffling back, bruised but vociferant, clutching in its tentacles a slew of reports from San Jose MercuryNews.com. I’ve spent the last hour reviewing these, with increasing nausea.
By now you will have heard a summary of the case: in San Jose, California, at a house party on March 3 of this year, three men gang-raped a comatose teenager while ten jolly spectators whooped it up on the sidelines. On May 21, Santa Clara County DA Dolores Carr astonished the victim, the sheriff’s department, and right-thinking humans everywhere when she dismissed all charges because of ‘insufficient evidence.’
Outcry, both local and blogular, has ensued.
The media lump together the assault and its concomitant juridical circus under the moniker ‘the De Anza case’ because two of the rapists were members of the (San Jose, California) De Anza Community College baseball team. This factoid is significant because the media know a fortuitously sordid sequel to the popular ‘Duke lacrosse scandal’ when they see one, and can’t leave the sports angle alone. It is also significant because DA Dolores Carr clearly had no wish to toddle down the same thorny path as her College Sports Rape Scandal counterpart in Durham NC, old Mike Nifong, whose hubris-y personal ambitions got him busted for concealing evidence favorable to the Duke rapists.
MercuryNews reports are rife with male-dominant vernacular, both from quoted sources and in the reportage itself. This language reveals that, in the popular imagination, in adjudication of rape cases, and in media culture, there flourishes a truly despicable, antifeminist, misogynist zeitgeist. The prominent themes are alcohol-and-consent, the aforementioned irrelevant circumstance that the rapists were college athletes, and the bizarre idea that ‘insufficient evidence’ is now the equivalent of ‘it never happened.’
For your blaming convenience, here’s an overview of the case, compiled exclusively from MercuryNews articles, and viewed through Twisty-colored glasses.
March 4: Gang-rape occurs; spectators cheer; victim is taken to hospital by women from the party. Police captain Steve Angus asserts that “some sort of sexual assault occurred,” but the rape is always described as “alleged”; as we now know, if there is ‘insufficient evidence,’ suddenly there was no assault. This magical thinking omits to consider, you know, facts, as well as the views of the women who took the victim to the hospital after she’d been brutalized (they were never asked to testify before the grand jury), not to mention the victim herself.
Apparently it’s perfectly normal for incapacitated teenage girls to blithely service multiple baseball players while a shitfaced mob yuks it up. Says young eyewitness Megan Keefhaver, whose boyfriend just happens to be a De Anza baseball player, “The people in the room obviously were cheering the guys on or something like that. But I didn’t think of it as a rape situation.” Because she’s from the moon.
March 17: MercuryNews runs a story entirely devoted to the sorrowful heartbreak so unfairly inflicted on — yup, you called it — the baseball team. De Anza has suspended eight players for what reporter Elliot Almond calls ‘questionable behavior’ ; the team is suffering sorely as a result of the inconvenient rape. Laments coach Scott Hertler, “Mentally, none of us are sleeping great. We’re probably not eating right because we just don’t feel good.” He regrets that they didn’t teach him how to deal with rape-based morale-slippage in “coaching school.”
But the “team’s resilience” shines through, and they win the big game! Yay team!
Way to romanticize, via our dudely young athletes, those lofty all-American ideals of character, brotherhood and sportsmanship with which male college sports teams are commonly thought to be imbued.
They aren’t supposed to rape and pillage, though, before they turn pro.
March 19: 20-year-old Steve Rebagliati, host of the rape party and one of the ‘alleged’ rapists, executes a felony hit-and-run just hours before raping the teenager. This tidbit will disappear like magic from MercuryNews reports, but Rebagliati, whose family owns the rape house, will become the Face of the innocent baseball team.
April 9: A second woman comes forward. It turns out that she was raped by the same baseball team in the same house three months earlier. They’d given her shots of tequila and matched her with shots of beer. What sportsmanship!
Like the hit-and-run mentioned above, this allegation vanishes into the mist.
May 16: After testifying before the grand jury, the chivalrous sportsman MercuryNews calls “Freshman pitcher Ryan Kanzaki” is overheard in the hall gleefully reporting to his family that he has been granted immunity. MercuryNews implies that this human stain Kanzaki was one of the cheering crowd urging his teammates on to feats of drunken brutality. Of course! His all-American sportsmanlike team spirit naturally makes him reluctant to rat out his fellow criminals.
Two other uncharged suspects are described in terms of their wholesome sportiness: “sophomore Chris Skinner, an infielder,” and “Spencer Maltbie, who doubles as a pitcher and infielder.” Causing my obstreperal lobe to throb uncomfortably, Maltbie apparently believes that because he doesn’t “drink or smoke” he is above suspicion.
May 22: DA Dolores Carr issues brief statement re: the ‘insufficient evidence.” Mistaking this for vindication, suspect Rebagliati relates his sorrowful tale of woe at having been a “scapegoat.” A reporter actually asks what he would say to the victim if he had the chance. He would, in fact, take the opportunity to lecture the lying slut — because let’s face it; if there was no rape, but she did a baseball team, she has to be a lying slut — on the importance of developing character: “I’d ask her why she chose to put us and herself through so much. My only thought is I hope that she learned a lot, as well as about herself, in the last two months.”
In case you were wondering, he can sleep at night, knowing that “as a team, [we] are innocent and free to live normally again.”
There’s no interviewing the victim, who of course will never be “free to live normally” again, so MercuryNews reports that she’s “disappointed,” but that heavy drinking makes prosecuting sexual assaults “difficult.”
The real reason that prosecuting sexual assaults is difficult — i.e. our culture’s fucking endemic misogyny — is not mentioned.
May 21 In an opinion piece, Scott Herhold demands answers! He wants to know whether the cops flubbed the investigation, sure, but he won’t be satisfied until there has been a thorough and public recap of the actual rape. Presumably this is so he and all the other CSI-poisoned sexperts out there can judge for themselves whether or not the baseball team pronged the victim en masse because they are rapists, or because the drunken little slut just really likes “sex.” He wants details!
What harm could it do? The case isn’t just about a rape victim, he says. It’s “about how our elected law enforcement officials do their job” (no doubt the victim would consider it just peachy if MercuryNews published a play-by-play of her rape, but alas, Herhold can’t ask her to confirm; she’s already moved away to escape the horror and humiliation). And besides, he says, who’s to say there isn’t a “problem with the credibility of the victim herself?” Everybody knows that 17-year-old girls constantly rush around to hospitals and make shit up about how they were gang-raped by baseball teams.
May 22: “Santa Clara County Sheriff Laurie Smith said Tuesday she believes that ‘individuals got away with sexual assault’ at a party attended by members of the De Anza College baseball team, and that ‘at some point, someone needs to speak up for the victim.’” Well, duh.
May 23: This MercuryNews report characterizes the victim as “the girl” and her rape as a “controversy.” Also, readers who are anxious with concern for DA Dolores Carr’s conscience can rest easy. Quoth Carr, “I’m at peace with my decision.”
And once again, the right of mobs of drunken male athletes to relieve their incontinence in semi-conscious teen receptacles has been upheld by law enforcement. This sickening and egregious miscarriage of justice, my young onions, is precisely what the Twisty Consent? Schmonsent! Protocol would address.
I’m officially sick of sports, the people who play sports, and the fans of sports. I would appreciate it very much if men everywhere decided that basket weaving and other arts and crafts were worthy manly pursuits. Preferably to be pursued while sober and miles from the nearest woman.
I’m crying. It’s day like this you just hate this whole rotten world.
Thank god for Nifong and the immoral media! The hoopla over the Duke case has now made it quite likely that gang rape will be tacitly legal, because prosecuters will be scared to death to prosecute.
This is one of those things where my brain just shuts off. If I began to fully grasp the disgusting implications of this situation I think I’d have an aneurism. And I’m loving that ONE quote they are using from a witness throughout all the articles. “I didn’t think of it as a rape situation.” Can we hear from one of the women who took her to the hospital? Or how about the one guy who supposedly tried to stop it.
Wash’t the idea of team sports to channel male aggression so they wouldn’t run around raping and pillaging? Or was it simply to tire them out so they wouldn’t question The Man?
The idea of team sports is to hone the skills necessary for success in life under a paradigm of dominance and submission.
I just can’t comprehend how this could possibly be seen as anything but rape.
Some adult gave the victim alcohol, illegally. Three witnesses can testify that she was semi-conscious, vomiting (unable to keep anything down), and that they had to carry her out of the house she was so drunk. They can also testify that the men were holding the door closed. Why would they have to hold the door closed if this was consensual sex? AND SHE IS UNDERAGE! How is this not a crime?? HOW? How much more evidence do they need?
there aren’t enough words in the two languages I know to discribe my disgust. I really really hope that some one (perhapse this school’s women’s lib group?) will start protests at sporting events. if this was my school those players would be the one’s who have to leave.
Why are these guys being treated like real athletes? These guys are on a *community* college team. What’s next? We’ll let the little league team commit larceny? This has absolutely nothing to do with sports.
District Attorneys are elected aren’t they? Isn’t this problematic? (I’m not American, so correct me if I’m wrong). Is Dolores Carr trying to court the votes of Dude Nation?
Two of the women who rescued the girl have spoken to the press.
http://www.ktvu.com/news/13370961/detail.html
Or the votes of men who really hate teenage girls. Unfortunately, perhaps that is not such a small constituency.
And I would bet good money that the three young women who rescued this child are now being harassed.
In her election campaign, Carr had to battle expectations that she would not be independent enough of the police, because her husband is on the police force.
If I had any hope left, it would go toward the possibility that she will have something more to battle in the next election: an outraged public.
This morning I sent a letter to the state attorney general, hoping that someone in that office might think an investigation is in order. I don’t know, however, if that’s the correct office to contact.
Shabnam, Dolores Carr is trying to prove that she wasn’t lying when she got elected on a platform of “my San Jose police detective husband will in no way influence my decisions as DA.” True enough; ostensibly she and the cops depart wildly from each other on this case.
Oh, and she’s trying to court the votes of Dude Nation.
I see Vera has already answered Shabnam’s question. Someday I will understand blogs.
The Sherriff’s ofice is keeping the case open.
“Sources told CBS 5 that the Sheriff’s Office was considering a range of options from re-starting the investigation, to re-filing on new, lesser charges against the baseball players for having unlawful sex with a minor, or furnishing a minor with alcohol.”
I get the impression that the sheriff is watching and waiting for has the rapist who committed the hit/run to strike again.
Okay, the really devastating quotation for me is from the article linked by bad kitty. Speaking of the victim: “When they lifted her head up, her eyes moved and she said ‘I’m sorry.’”
jesus god what made her think she should be sorry?
badkitty, thanks for the link. The lowlight is this, from one of the gang-rapers: “This is her fault. She got drunk and she did this to herself.” She did what - gang-raped herself when she was so drunk she was vomiting and had to be carried out of the house?
“When they lifted her head up, her eyes moved and she said ‘I’m sorry.’â€
I do not have the ovaries to continue reading general coverage of this bullshit anymore, but jesus tapdancing christ. This is precisely why I write this fucking blog; I keep hoping, against all reason, that some parent somewhere will read it and think “Oh! Wow. Maybe I should try to imbue my son with some sense of T & B. And while I’m at it, maybe I should become a feminist.”
She’s a woman in a patriarchy. She really shouldn’t be out in public, let alone thinking she has the right to drink at a party where there are men without relegating herself to the slut class.
“This is her fault. She got drunk and she did this to herself.â€
Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall.
“jesus god what made her think she should be sorry?”
A crime has been committed so someone needs to take the blame. As rapists are never to blame it falls on the victim to accept responsibility. That’s why everybody blames the victim too, at some level they know something terrible has happened, but they can’t quite bring themselves to blame men for their crimes against women, so the outrage gets conveniently transferred to the victims.
delphyne nails it, as usual.
Delphyne, it’s called shame, and all survivors of sexual assault carry it (myself included).
Me too lawbitch. I’m questioning why it happens. It’s just my own theory, but I think if communities were genuinely outraged about rape and supportive to victims that victims would find it easier (not easy though) to recover and not to blame ourselves. I mean if we can’t blame the rapist, it must be our fault, right? It’s the stinkiest of stinky dynamics.
Reports like these make me want to commit violent acts against men. Hit them, beat them, kill them.
Yeah, yeah, I know it solves nothing, I guess.
sounds like you sure do buy in to the way the media twists a case in a girls direction…ever thought about what happened before the girl went in that roo…what she was doing…..saying….acting….perhaps when the truthful story comes out after all this dies down you will lower your chin a bit and look in the mirror…..the media is not the accurate source of info. they were not there in that room…i was….justice has been served
This is completely beyond the fucking pale. Insufficient evidence??? I was apparently under the mistaken impression that eyewitness accounts were still admissable in court and that even our present batch of misogynist fuckwits in the legal system included “Where a person is prevented from resisting by any intoxicating or anesthetic substance, or any controlled substance, and this condition was known, or reasonably should have been known by the
accused (taken directly from the California Penal Code),” in their definition of rape. Absolutely nauseating. There should be violent vigilantes for this kind of situation.
I don’t know why I’m so surprised, really. Even community college athletes are obviously worth far more to the community than some stupid, drunken slut, right? After all, where would we be as a country if we let a little thing like a brutal gang rape interfere with the capacity of witless virile evolutionary events to hit leather wrapped spheres with crude phallic objects, to the adoration of thousands (okay, probably closer to dozens; this is community college, after all) of equally witless but less virile asshats with nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon? Fuck all these people.
I’ve been working on shame. Shame has a psychological function. Shame allows the victim to believe that she had control over her own life.
In my case, I suffered sexual abuse as a child. I clearly understand on an intellectual level that I was in no way responsible. I *needed* to feel like I had some control over my own body, even when that control did not exist. As an adult, I’ve even thought that it was my fault for not telling. My DH called me on that and reminded me that I would have been beaten for telling the truth. He is absolutely right. I did what I had to do to survive.
Well, well, well. ‘De anza player’, since you were there, by all means enlighten the group. We await ‘the truthful story’ with bated breath.
Just kidding! Banned!
re kate.
“Reports like these make me want to commit violent acts against men. Hit them, beat them, kill them.
Yeah, yeah, I know it solves nothing, I guess.”
I think most sane people feel like that after reading new like this; at least a little bit. logic comes in and reminds you that you’d get arrested and it doesn’t change the fact that it happened.
De Anza rape apologist,
ever thought about what happened before the girl went in that roo…what she was doing…..saying….acting…”
No, because it’s entirely irrelevant to what they (you?) did to her.
“I’d ask her why she chose to put us and herself through so much. My only thought is I hope that she learned a lot, as well as about herself, in the last two months.â€
Gang rape lovingly recast as an exercise in self-for the victim. How well our young have absorbed the art of spin and denial from our leaders, media and corporations.
“I’d ask her why she chose to put us and herself through so much. My only thought is I hope that she learned a lot, as well as about herself, in the last two months.â€
Gang rape lovingly recast as an exercise in self-improvement for the victim. How well our young have absorbed the art of spin and denial from our leaders, media and corporations.
Does anyone have the DA’s Phone Number and address? When Shaquanda Cotton was sentenced to 7 years in prison (at the age of 14), people literally harassed the judge until she was free. Sharpton didn’t even get a chance to protest. Perhaps we can start a similar movement.
I always get chills when I see some talking head (e.g. Scott Herhold) blithely questioning the “credibility of the victim herself” in a rape case. In the Duke scandal, the media gleefully reported that the victim had once had a nervous breakdown, so could not be trusted. (She was also a sex worker–enough said!) I suffer from depression, so it was too easy to imagine myself reporting an assault and having no one believe a word I said.
In the De Anza case, not only the victim herself, but her two rescuers insist a rape occurred! This suggests an unpleasant thought experiment: would the DA prosecute the case if the rescuers/eyewitnesses were male and not female? I probably don’t want to know the answer.
“How well our young have absorbed the art of spin and denial from our leaders, media and corporations.”
And how poorly they have absorbed grammar.
“Justice” will begin being served when some savvy lawyer convinces her to sue all their asses.
I doubt that the victim wants more attention. Perhaps you didn’t notice the discussion of shame?
Just when I thought that it couldn’t get any worse, I discover this about the “bondage webmaster.”
http://news.com.com/Police Blotter Bondage Webmaster fights abuse conviction/2100-1030_3-6185920.html?tag=html.alert.comp
I
Savage morons like the DeAnza rapists, everyone at the party who was aware of the rape(except for those three courageous girls), Judge Carr, and the Mercury people are the reason I hate this world. They’re the reason why I dread staying alone in a room with men. The reason why, the two times I allowed myself the luxury of getting drunk, I checked my clothes multiple times afterwards for signs of somebody messing with it and interrogated all my friends if they had been with me at all times(I suffer from blackouts when I get drunk, even a little drunk). They’re the reason why, even after being reassured by my female friends that they never left my side, I suffered from retroactive paranoia for months after each of those drunken experiences. And hated myself for allowing the drunkenness to happen. Hated myself, even though both times I got drunk accidentally - cause I was a 15-year-old kid who didn’t know her limit. Hated myself, despite the fact that everyone around me was drunk too. The fear. The guilt. It was unbearable. Still is, when I remember it. If I had actually gotten raped, I don’t know how I would have survived the guilt. I know there would have been no reason for me to feel gulty, but I also know that I still would. And I also know that I would have never, ever reported it. Not in a world like this. IBTP.
Ooops. Read about it here:
http://feministlawprofs.law.sc.edu/
I just don’t know what evidence anyone needs of how much people hate women as a group. I am so exhausted with being called “shrill,” “strident,” “angry,” and “overreactive” about feminism and women’s lot in life. Exactly what other option besides anger does one have? Sorrow and despair, I guess.
I have two sons and I want to go upstairs right now and scream at them pre-emptively that women are NOT their personal sexual receptacles.
Of course, since they’re 6 & 10 years old, they will have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.
But believe me, by the time the oldest one is 12, he will know. In the bluntest terms possible.
And really, the motivation, the hatred, the attitude, the entire sickening culture behind this and other similar events: how far are we, really, from a society that practices “honor” killings?
Not far, I think. Not far at all.
Well, I’m left speechless and crying. I feel gutted for this poor girl, and terrified that my 13 year old daughter could someday be in the same situation. I can only hope that my time here at IBTP (long time lurker, infrequent commentor) has enabled me to instill in her the values we need for the revolution!
Luckily, De Anza college has a workshop on a timely topic.
http://www.deanza.edu/eventscalendar/main.php?view=event&eventid=1178210887823
ever thought about what happened before the girl went in that roo…what she was doing…..saying….acting….perhaps when the truthful story comes out after all this dies down you will lower your chin a bit and look in the mirror
De anza player, it’s high time YOU looked in the mirror. Where did this child get the alcohol which made her act in a way that you felt justified men having sex with a nearly comotose child?
Just because so many other men are no better than you doesn’t excuse you.
If you and your buddies had killed her through alcohol poisoning could you live with yourself so easily? She didn’t just happen to have alcohol in her system. Her vomitting may have saved her life. We both know the alcohol was your weapon of choice used with premeditation. You as a group used it as bait and you used it as a weapon of incapacitation. You did what you did because you could and because you wanted to. If you had sex with her you are a rapist, if you watched or stood guard you aided and abetted a felony whether you are ever convicted or not.
Anything else is just bullshit.
But if you looked at yourself in a mirror without the bullshit, you’d see more than is comfortable seeing. Denial and victim blaming are easier and those who go for the rape are all about taking the easy way no matter who it hurts as long as it isn’t you.
SusanM said what I was on my way down here to say. Even if that girl walked in the room, kicked off her pants. laid spread-eagled on the bed and offered to take all comers, the boys in the room are in the wrong and ought to pay for it. The fact that she was drunk, barely conscious, and regurgitating the contents of her stomach will only serve to render void and null any release they had the girl sign.
What, no release?
Surely the owner of the home in which the party took place has a duty of care toward those in attendance, particularly minors, even more particularly minors who have consumed alcohol on the premises. If bartenders and bar owners can be sued for accidents their patrons cause after consuming alcohol in their establishment, surely the host is liable for the harm that befell this girl, regardless of whether at any point she actually agreed to have sex. Bar patrons agree to consume alcohol, and voluntarily get in their cars and drive, and they are typically not minors, nor semi-conscious when they leave the bar.
She should expect fair compensation for the host’s negligence. His house, for a start.
Those two young ladies in the linked article above (badkitty’s link) need to be on a witness stand in front a jury, and soon, or pretty much everybody, elected or otherwise, in that law enforcement community needs to be looking for a new job. Kwillz has approximately the right idea.
I’m not that far away. For reasons that should be obvious, I’ll have to wait for the media attention to die down a bit. After that, I’ll see what I can do. It will be my pleasure.
Take care of that sick S&M bastard while you’re at it.
tinfoil hattie,
you would be surprised how patriarchy-brainwashed little boys can be. A few days ago I was walking past an elementary school when suddenly these two ten-year-olds(at best) run up to me and grab my butt, and then proceed to slap it, calling me a dirty whore. No, I’m not exaggerating in the slightest.
Besides, it’s enough to remember my own elementary school days. The first mysogynist sexual verbal assaults by my male classmates started in the first grade. From then on, it only got worse. But I was lucky - my class was normal, at least measured by patriarchy’s standards. I observed so many other girls throughout elementary school going through HELL, starting wt roughly the age of 11. For many of those girls having their classmates poke their crotch with umbrella or squeeze their breast painfully were routine events.
So, if I were you I’d probably speak to the older boy about it. I’m not trying to tell you how to be a parent or anything. I’ve just seen too much shit inflicted upon little girls in my life.
“Just kidding! Banned!”
And the gratitude flows like a tinkly little mountain creek: cool, clear and full of trout.
Not such a great metaphor, perhaps. But heartfelt.
DA Dolores Carr: “It’s interesting that during the election some questioned whether I could be independent from law enforcement. This is an indication the answer is yes.”
I found this chilling. Carr seems as concerned with this point as with anything else. This was her test case, exploited for political gain. May it come back to bite her in the butt.
May 24th: Rainbow Girl suffers rage-induced brain anyeurism.
A woman who was on the scene says:
“The people in the room obviously were cheering the guys on or something like that. But I didn’t think of it as a rape situation.â€
For fuck sake this makes me sick to my core. I realize that the patriarchy can poison the minds of women as much as men, but it still infuriates me when women will take the side of men over that of women. Women are so used to excusing and explaining and making up for men, it becomes second nature. They can tell themselves complete lies to keep their fairytales intact.
The fact that three female soccer players were the ones who got the girl out is the only reason I have any hope at all. These women did the right thing and their story needs to be heard by every woman who hears the rest of it.
All women must be en-couraged [given the courage] to do this any time there’s any question at all about a situation. Much of this shit we can’t do anything about because we’re not present, but sometimes we can do something, sometimes we can intervene, sometimes women have the chance raise hell in the moment to save each other. Doing nothing in that situation shouldn’t be an option that a decent human being would take and then smirk about it later.
Yes, men hate us and I don’t expect any better of them than this, but a woman sitting idly by while another woman is brutalized in the next room is unforgivable.
Porn tells them this is how to be Artemis.
This reminds me of an acquaintance of mine from high school choir. She was at a party and a group of boys (I think there may have been three of them) raped her and videotaped it. I didn’t know her well; I think she was two or three years younger than me, although when we had been children I had used to babysit her little sister sometimes.
I remember the trial taking a long-ass time, not being in the media at all, and the rapists getting a really light sentence–possibly probation. I think they were on the baseball team, in fact, although they may have been cross country/track and field boys.
I was only seventeen that year. One of the rapists had been in my social studies class in the seventh grade, and I remember thinking I had thought he seemed like a decent guy and resolving never to assume that again.
Lucija,
WTF??? GRABBED YOUR ASS AND CALLED YOU — I have no words.
And good point. My sister started being molested in school at age 10 — boys would prod her very large breasts and say, “Who’s Gumby’s pal? POKEY!” while the teacher sat there, oblivious.
I will find a way to talk to my older son about this. I have hope for him, because once when I pointed out some (relatively) innocuous patriarchal bullshit, he said, “If I were a girl I’d be the most bitter feminist in the world.” After I patted him on the back I said, “You don’t have to be a girl to be a bitter feminist.”
But enlightening my already-pretty-decent son feels like putting out a fire with a watering can. What good will it do against this mountain of vicious rage against women?
Here’s a another side of the shame issue:
There are cases of childhood abuse where the child actually feels a degree of physical pleasure during the abuse episodes.
The child seeks to reconcile this physical sensation with the knowledge that what is being experienced is wrong, unwelcomed, and repulsive. The result is deep shame.
The body has its own responses to physical stimulation which may or may not reflect a person’s will, desire, or intention. The fact of the victim’s possible experience of physical pleasure can never justify the rape or abuse.
Thus, the men who claim “oh, she gets into it once we got going” as a justification of force are in fact still guilty of rape, just as the pedophile who abuses a child without causing physical pain is still guilty of sexual assault.
For a child, the experience of physical pleasure as a result of abuse is profoundly, insidiously damaging, as it causes extreme confusion, self-doubt, self-blame and abiding shame which can be pervasive and permanent.
So many forms of shame heaped on innocent women and children.
I’d love to shove the rapists’ face in it. I join the commenters here who are sickened, enraged and fed up.
tinfoil hattie: “And really, the motivation, the hatred, the attitude, the entire sickening culture behind this and other similar events: how far are we, really, from a society that practices “honor†killings? Not far, I think. Not far at all.”
Absolutely right! Patriarchy infests the whole globe. There are different varieties of this infestation in different parts of the world, which, on the surface, look completely different. But if you look closer, you see that it’s the same damn thing. Men hate us, and if they know they can get away with it, they will destroy us.
I only hope that women in the US will be rioting in the streets. None of this peace vigil stuff. They need to feel threatened.
Sorry, just to clarify: When I said “they should feel threatened” I meant anyone complicit with this rape.
Twisty and others: it is through this blog that I have found the courage to confront my own situation–that the fact that one reason I have been unhappy for so long is that I accepted my position in the patriarchy from the patriarchy. Your ability to clarify and lift the veil from the eyes is truly important. And freeing. Please don’t ever doubt that.
And that goes to all the blamers as well. I have learned more from all of you than I have in long years of life lived by the rule of shame.
And I thank you every day.
Kwillz asked about the contact information for the DA, Dolores Carr. Here you go:
Dolores Carr
70 West Hedding St.
San Jose, CA 95110
(408) 299-3099
Also, I found another number for her office: (408)299-7500. I called this number and left an irate message. You just have to wait through a very long message in many languages (yay multilingualism!) before you hear the beep.
If you happen to live in Santa Clara county (hi neighbor), make sure you mention that you are a constituent and will remember this case the next time she runs for public office. Your call will make an even bigger impact if you leave your address and ask for a written response to your concerns.
Happy dialing!
I’m sure that someone has already gotten around to this, but contact information for DA Dolores Carr is as follows:
Office of the District Attorney
70 West Hedding Street, West Wing
San Jose, CA 95110
Phone: (408) 299-7400
Email: webmaster@da.co.santa-clara.ca.us
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Perhaps the title of this thread could be altered a bit (not to correct Her TF):
“Men hate *really* drunk teenage girls”–
because nothing is worse than the sexually assaulted victim being so boozed she cannot even mutter her NeverEffingEver-consent, nor kick or scream or any of that other hot stuff women do.
Or maybe it’s just that the De Anza players have not finished reading their copy of “How to Perpetuate the Rape Culture” just yet. Because it’s a cardinal rule in Rape Culture that if one’s victim is not tearing in defense of her natural-bornless-unright that the Rapist is not going to reap the benefits of a full-fledged rape fantasy (insert “thought police” defense here). Also in said book is -2 pts for using a roofie and -10 if your fellow rapists are not surrounding you in chants of glory.
Twisty:
You succeeded. So, there’s one.
Once the Duke guys were able to get away with rape, as Amanda says, gang rape became legal.