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Rape Culture???????? Ridculous????????

March 31st, 2006 by cooper

Last night I came across this at Real Clear Poli­tics.
This is in regard to the Duke Lac­rosse Team alle­ged rape case in case you are una­ware this is a link.
A blog friend of mine, Jason ( Zen­for­ma­tion Pro­fes­sio­nal ) had touched on it briefly as have a num­ber of other blogs, all too nume­rous to men­tion but one of the best the best I have seen is at Amp­toons and you can follow links for the rest.

The word lac­rosse stuck me while scro­lling Jason’s blog due to having a few friends who play or have pla­yed lac­rosse. Coming from Mary­land and now living in NY, the two most lac­rosse infes­ted sta­tes in the country, it caught my eye. Jason, (who by the way works on a college cam­pus), seems far more edu­ca­ted and rea­so­na­ble on this sub­ject than the author of the article I’m refe­rring to.

It was the atti­tude of the author of article which pro­vo­ked a little bit of anger in me and at two in the mor­ning and that is hard to do. I can’t com­ment on the case too furiously at this time as the jury is still out on exactly what hap­pe­ned and we are all inno­cent until pro­ven guilty but regard­less of the out­come it was the per­va­sive atti­tude and tone of this article which mimics the per­va­sive atti­tude in this country, an atti­tude spe­ci­fi­cally but not solely among males, which per­pe­trate the myth that “rape cul­ture” is a term women and gen­der stu­dies depart­ments inven­ted for the lone rea­son of having a women’s and gen­der stu­dies depart­ment. I can just about see this guy rolling his eyes as he says he finds this quote.

It is impor­tant that we not let this go down easily,” he said as hun­dreds of marchers began gathe­ring on Duke’s east cam­pus. “There’s a cul­ture of rape at Duke, so we’re hoping this will get them to speak up. This rape is a symp­tom of a lar­ger pro­blem at Duke

Whether or not there is a rape here is imma­te­rial as their is a rape cul­ture on many college cam­pu­ses and those at Duke know it regard­less of the spe­ci­fics of this case.

.from a Duke stu­dent in USA today laugha­ble and he wri­tes the following.

Being a Mary­land bas­ket­ball fan I have no love for the Duke stu­dent body, but the idea that there is some kind of cul­ture of rape at Duke Uni­ver­sity is just absurd. This type of atti­tude is a by-product of the Women’s Stu­dies, lef­tist men­ta­lity that is so pre­va­lent among stu­dent acti­vists and faculty on college cam­pu­ses. There are so many cross currents here (race, rape, pri­vi­le­ged ath­le­tes, poor vic­tim, college poli­tics) it will be fas­ci­na­ting to see how this story unfolds as the facts spill out.…..which they will. This has the poten­tial to blow up into a huge story.

Yes ‚a huge story and I can just see this guy droo­ling and rub­bing his hands together in anti­ci­pa­tion of all the pon­ti­fi­ca­tion he will get to do on the sub­ject. If there is a cul­ture of rape at Duke it seems likely that a stu­dent atten­ding school there would be more apt to know about it than Mr Mary­land Bas­ket­ball fan. (as if that is anything to be all that proud of this year.)

Yes, des­pite the fact that inci­dence of rape has is grown, not dec­li­ned, dra­ma­ti­cally, (many con­ser­va­tive figu­res show an 88 per­cent inc­rease in the rate of for­ci­ble rape per 100,000 inha­bi­tants over the past twenty years), and des­pite the fact that scho­lars and many femi­nists, and acti­vists argue that the Uni­ted Sta­tes of Ame­rica is the para­dig­ma­tic Rape Cul­ture and America’s tra­di­tio­nal gen­der roles which pola­rize the sexes, offer presc­rip­tions and presc­rip­tions for female and male sexua­lity and the fact that these ideo­lo­gies serve to label men sexual sub­jects and women sexual objects this is seen by this author as an impro­ba­ble situa­tion one big cons­pi­racy and ruse and an almost joke which he will follow with fascination.

I’ve never been one to pro­mote gen­der over sen­si­bi­lity and I don’t know what country this gent­le­man lives in or how long it has been since he has been in college. I’ve been in one for some time now and have friends at colle­ges throughout the US, and there is strong, sub­jec­tive and objec­tive, as well as sta­tis­ti­cal, evi­dence to sug­gest that not only does the Uni­ted Sta­tes have a cul­ture of rape but that it is extre­mely pre­va­lent on college cam­pu­ses throughout this fine country of ours.
To further com­pli­cate this issue, in this case our cul­ture is still white supre­ma­cist cul­ture based on class.
Does Duke just not scream out at you from this plat­form?
No?
Bet­ter take a clo­ser look. Whiche­ver way this turns out I think we all need to take a clo­ser look at a society where ath­le­tes with good law­yers AKA can come out sme­lling like a rose…a wil­ted rose maybe but still a rose while the vic­tims come out sme­lling like little more than yes­ter­days garbage.

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32 Responses to “Rape Culture???????? Ridculous????????”

  1. DougNo Gravatar says:

    Alice, explain what you mean by the cul­ture of rape, please. I’m not being a smart-ass, I’m not sure I get it. Are you refe­rring to social sig­nals that rape is ok/good or a cul­ture indif­fe­rent to the well­being of women, or something else?

    The Mary­land fan com­ment was ridi­cu­lous in that article.

  2. cooperNo Gravatar says:

    Doug that is a very good ques­tion and I guess I get stuck in some ways in women and gen­der stu­dies when using that term as it seems even though there has been a lot of media cove­rage over the years on this par­ti­cu­lar aspect of our cul­ture it is still not s term most peo­ple unders­tand. Briefly because I do have a class…believe it or not. rape cul­ture is one in which 1. rape and other forms of vio­lence against women are com­mon; 2. rape and other forms of vio­lence against women are tole­ra­ted (in that pre­va­lence is high while arrest, pro­se­cu­tion, and con­vic­tion rates for the crime are low); 3. victim-blaming and racist myths of rape and other forms of vio­lence against women are com­mon­place; 4. ima­ges of rape and other forms of vio­lence against women abound; 5. ima­ges of sex and vio­lence are intert­wi­ned; and 6. women do not enjoy full legal, eco­no­mic, and social equa­lity with men. I am sure I will be able to expand on this later.

  3. jacobNo Gravatar says:

    I pos­ted my com­ment at BIO.

    As you know I am from Mary­land and it is all over the news here and Inside Lac­rosse is even cove­ring it.

    As if beibg a fan of Mary­land bas­ket­ball has anything to do with it at all. It made his whole point seem more absurd and poorly founded.

  4. daneNo Gravatar says:

    I was loo­king around to see if we noted any of this and the only refe­rence I could find to Duke was that we had bea­ten them on spring break.  I did find this: http://www.cornellsun.com/media/storage/paper866/news/2006/03/29/News/Rape-Victims.Speak.Out.Against.Stigma-1763105.shtml?norewrite200603311607&sourcedomain=www.cornellsun.com

    which addres­ses and gives cre­dance to what you said about their being a cul­ture of rape one that the guy who wrote the article dis­mis­ses as some sort of aca­de­mic ploy.

  5. CowgirlNo Gravatar says:

    This is a sub­ject that mat­ters a lot to me. No mat­ter how much we try to hide it, rape is pre­va­lent in our society. What makes me sad, no, outra­ged, is the fact how it is rarely repor­ted.
    Mainly because the rape is one of the few cri­mes where the vic­tim can turn into the accused.

  6. huhNo Gravatar says:

    Don’t for­get about some women who might have no pro­blem lying to police.

    http://www.thrillnetwork.com/stories_view.php/1431/disney_employee_lied_rape_authorities.html

  7. I’m wary of the term “rape cul­ture,” but I’m hardly in any posi­tion to refute.

    If a school offi­cial covers up a rape it should mean their ass though

  8. cooperNo Gravatar says:

    jacob: exactly your com­ment at bio was great btw. dane: great and thp article thanks. Cow­girl: sadly yes that is often the case and more so when money is con­cer­ned. huh: obvious you mis­sed the point enti­rely. wom­bat: wary of something that is a fact? My basic point was how insi­pid and arro­gant and totally use­less this guys article was as he was wai­ting with his ton­gue out pan­ting for more news as if this was a big joke and ” Cul­ture of Rape” is purely a fig­ment of some aca­de­mians dream.

  9. joe gNo Gravatar says:

    Hit­ting us again. From Costa Rican vaca­tion pic­tu­res, to dan­cing like Sha­kira to this.

    I loo­ked at that post at RCP and I agree to some extent that he made no points worth loo­king at and did give an impres­sion of thin­king of the “cul­ture of rape” as a term made up solely by femi­nists or academics.

    The part about being a Mary­land bas­ket­ball fan and how he wea­ved it in just made him look more like an asshole and made his sta­te­ment that much more lame.

    I have read you long enough to know how this must have got­ten to you. Thought­ful you are and not unreasonable.

    The cul­ture of rape as you desc­ribe has been shown to exist in this country and I am inte­res­ted in how this turns out but not in the same way as the author of the article seems to be. If it is true, and I have no rea­son to believe in either direc­tion with my limi­ted know­ledge of the situa­tion, a whole can of worms will be open and maybe for the bet­ter. I liked your res­pon­ses at BIO as well.

    Good Going. Mix it up.

    keep dan­cing like shakira

  10. huhNo Gravatar says:

    I got your point.

  11. TorNo Gravatar says:

    Hello,

    Just let­ting you know that I’ve loo­ked over your blog and accep­ted it for a ren­tal at Tor’s Rants.

    And spea­king as one who went to college 15 years ago, it’s depres­sing and asto­nishing to see how little has chan­ged in this res­pect. In spite of all the pro­grams and trai­ning. Semes­ter after semes­ter, the judi­cial board of my college would release their reports, and semes­ter after semes­ter the results were that zero alle­ga­tions of sexual assault had been for­war­ded to them. This was tra­gic, since every­body knew some­body who should have made a report.

    Peace,

    Tor

  12. shaynaNo Gravatar says:

    You know how I feel on the sub­ject of rape…

    This post of yours is exce­llent… I love it when you write like this!!! From the heart and mind of
    a great young woman!!!

    It does seem in this day and age that rape/violence against not only women, but chil­dren is
    beco­ming the norm. WHY? Is our society beco­ming Nean­derthals? Swee­ping peo­ple and the
    horrors of the vic­tim under the rug is beco­ming a very com­mon occu­rrence and if peo­ple don’t
    speak out… then it will continue.

    Again, great post! ;)

  13. bellNo Gravatar says:

    I am so poli­ti­cally and cul­tu­rally inept, to some degree that I just don’t know what to say (this is pro­bably part of the grea­ter pro­blem). It sounds tra­gic and sic­ke­ning.
    Peo­ple seem lost, meta­bo­li­zed, induc­ted into mass con­su­me­rism at the moment of birth. Fee­ding on suf­fe­ring as enter­tain­ment; a vast coli­seum without walls; boundarieless-modern-arena. When the world beco­mes a hollow, mecha­ni­cal auto­ma­ton, its sub­jects are redu­ced to an exis­tence of dis­join­ted and absurd expe­rien­ces – of course the news, and his­tory in gene­ral, ties it all together for us as if the occu­rrence of phe­no­mena made sense in some seam­less fashion. A good trick. Something is lost, or never found (I am not quite sure). I wish I could be outra­ged by the par­ti­cu­lars of this spe­ci­fic ins­tance; the truth is I have trou­ble sepa­ra­ting it out from a lar­ger sense of things being not-quite-right in our country and on the pla­net. Sorry for being so vague. The only pos­si­ble solu­tion I can offer (or par­tial solu­tion) is to com­ple­tely reel against con­ven­tion; to strictly and cri­ti­cally exa­mine our­sel­ves; to mus­ter the con­fi­dence and strength to move beyond hesi­ta­tion and be in the world. One by one pro­vi­ding what is lac­king. One by one recons­truc­ting our poli­ti­cal space and rein­vi­go­ra­ting it with a sense of care and cul­ti­va­tion as oppo­sed to its current orien­ta­tion towards eco­no­mics and metabolism.

  14. JasonNo Gravatar says:

    Great post!

    I tend to agree with Wombat…I’m wary of the phrase “cul­ture of rape,” but not the con­cept behind it. I think its been a bit abu­sed over the last few years; there are a lot of, and I hate saying this, lazy peo­ple in Higher Ed. who’d rather throw a buzz­word around than actually fix anything. What’s going on at Duke hap­pens at way too many U.s — Remem­ber Colorado’s foot­ball scan­dals last year?

    But there is a major pro­blem with the ena­bling envi­ron­ment that surrounds college ath­le­tics, and higher edu­ca­tion as a whole. Too many uni­ver­sity police depart­ments run like rent-a-cop ser­vi­ces, sexual assault vic­tims are subtly stig­ma­ti­zed and led to believe that they’re the ones to blame, and uni­ver­si­ties con­ti­nue to refuse to clean the bullshit off their uni­ver­sity seals long enough to address the pro­blem holistically.

    The UM bas­ket­ball fan’s rather stu­pid com­ment seems to play into that ste­reoty­pi­cal dumb jock, boys will be boys mind­set. I’ve known too many good ath­le­tes, coaches trai­ners, and fans, who’ve spent their careers figh­ting that ste­reotype. I once watched a coach lite­rally toss a 240-lb line­bac­ker across a loc­ker room simply for joking about rape — honestly, I think there needs to be more of that. Its a shame some asshole hasn’t lear­ned that ACC hoops is not an appro­priate frame of refe­rence for sexual assault.

    Lol, chica…sorry about the long com­ment. Thanks for the shout-out.

  15. weirsdoNo Gravatar says:

    What got me was his rai­sing the pos­si­bi­lity that the strip­per inven­ted the story because she was dis­grunt­led. Yeah, right. Let­ting the whole world know how deeply you were hurt and humi­lia­ted, expo­sing your­self to the “she was a strip­per, she deser­ved it” school – that’s a great way to get revenge.

  16. cooperNo Gravatar says:

    joe: mixing it up and um..Trying to dance like shakira…it is good exercise.

    huh: then we’re good to go.

    tor: awe­some about the ren­tal and sad that the more things change the more they remain the same.

    shayna: well we can change the words to I love it when you write like this ins­tead of I love it when you dance like this. Thanks and I’m loo­king for­ward to the party.

    bell: mis­sed ya. It is sic­ke­ning. A very good point in that there are many things ” not quite right ” in this country and in the world but out ves­ted inte­rest is here. I feel if more peo­ple actually took the time to exa­mine them­sel­ves, their lives and what they believe in and stand for it would at least be a start. More so if peo­ple had a basic res­pect for them­sel­ves lea­ding to a res­pect for huma­nity it might help.

    Zen­pro: men always seem “more wary” of the term “cul­ture of rape” than women. I still think to some degree men just don’t get it. Men need to get it before we can solve this socie­tal and cul­tu­ral pro­blem.
    I agree with the fact that there is a pro­blem surroun­ding college ath­le­tics and ath­le­tics in gene­ral. It stems from the fact that we hold these peo­ple in higher regard than we do the peo­ple who actually deserve to be held in high regard. There is so much more though as there always is. Socie­tal issues of this mag­ni­tude rarely stem from one root there are usually a ton of roots coming in all directions.

    weirsdo: not to men­tion the fact that now if the DNA comes back nega­tive, which is quite pos­si­ble if they had their prophy­lac­tics on snug, there is a good chance they won’t pro­se­cute the case.

  17. […] This post is ari­sing out of the Duke gang rape story and cooper’s post on rape cul­ture. It is not a post that is about the Duke case, other than as a star­ting point for the dis­cus­sion that I believe needs to extend beyond the pri­vi­le­ges of being a white male ath­lete at an elite university. […]

  18. […] This post is ari­sing out of the Duke gang rape story and cooper’s post on rape cul­ture. It is not a post that is about the Duke case, other than as a star­ting point for the dis­cus­sion that I believe needs to extend beyond the pri­vi­le­ges of being a white male ath­lete at an elite university. […]

  19. I don’t like the expres­sion “rape cul­ture” because cul­ture is gene­rally a posi­tive word. To pair it with a uni­ver­sally nega­tive term seems like a con­tra­di­ci­tion. But rape was a big issue when I went to uni­ver­sity 1980 – 1984, and there were some awful inci­dents of rape at some of the fra­ter­ni­ties. To deny that this is a pro­blem is just plain ignorant.

  20. cooperNo Gravatar says:

    You see though Indie, at least here the fact is it is a rape culture.

  21. CowgirlNo Gravatar says:

    Cul­ture is no more posi­tive than it is nega­tive in the modern day use of the word. It is a word used to define a cer­tain time and place, inc­lu­ding beha­viors and values of a society. So obviously it is sui­ting because that is the world we live in.

    If it sounds too vul­gar or strong… good. Because it is. That is the point.

    I am outra­ged that this society’s first res­ponse to a rape is that “they deser­ved it” or “they brought it upon them­sel­ves.” No one “deser­ves” to be raped…

    But I would make an excep­tion for those that com­mit rape. I hope they drop their soap.

  22. piaNo Gravatar says:

    Actially cul­ture can mean fer­ment – as in yogurt cul­tu­res, yeast etc, so I think it’s a more
    than appro­priate word, and a yeast infec­tion is the least impor­tant thing that can hap­pen from
    a rape

    Sta­yed up from 3 AM to sun­rise wri­ting my res­ponse to Philo which was in res­ponse to yours which
    is a great way of com­mu­ni­ca­ting I think

    And nobody but nobody can mix it up like you do – was just lis­te­ning to Ben Har­pur yes­ter­day
    and thin­king how he can do old great songs in totally new ways because his voice is inc­re­dibly
    beautiful

  23. cooperNo Gravatar says:

    Cow­girl: I agree. Pia: three cheers for ben I love him and six cheers for you…3 AM? I think you ought to hook — up  with Wombat.

    I think the dis­cus­sion over there is beco­ming mighty fine. 

  24. Miz BoheMiaNo Gravatar says:

    Well writ­ten and well put Coop.

    I moved to the US from Spain when I was 14. By the time I was 16, prac­ti­cally all the friends I had had been either sexually assaul­ted or raped or had some story to tell… nothing had ever been done and things were swept under the rug… and I lived in a pretty affluent area and went to a 90210-ish type high school (yes, *shudder*).

    Years later when my sis­ter was 12, she was raped and all the police had to say on the mat­ter, after impl­ying that perhaps she had asked for it because she was pretty deve­lo­ped at that age, was that “In the olden days fami­lies would take mat­ters into their own hands”…

    I think you may have ins­pi­red me to edit and repost my thing on rape…

    It is very easy for men to say there is no rape cul­ture. Get some tits and ass and then let’s talk amigos!

  25. cooperNo Gravatar says:

    Mizzy Bohem: Tis still a man’s world. I loved that post of yours.

  26. Nice GuyNo Gravatar says:

    Every college man should take notice of what’s hap­pe­ning at Duke Uni­ver­sity because it could easily hap­pen to any one of us!

    Ear­lier this month a 27 year old into­xi­ca­ted exo­tic dan­cer clai­med that three mem­bers of the lac­rosse team raped her in enc­lo­sed bath­room; at the time of the ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tion, three mem­bers of the house volun­ta­rily gave DNA sam­ples to police and although the dis­trict attor­ney sta­tes the assault could have been com­mit­ted by someone else, he obtai­ned an order to get DNA sam­ples from 46 of the 47 mem­ber team, essen­tially accu­sing all of them as rapist.

    The party exten­ded throughout the house and yard, and the assault occu­rred inside an enc­lo­sed bath­room by only three men who may or may not have been mem­bers on the lac­rosse team, so it’s very pos­si­ble that the 47 mem­bers of the team have no know­ledge of the assault, yet the DA publicly claims, without any evi­dence, that the team is “sto­ne­wa­lling” when it’s more than likely that they really don’t have any infor­ma­tion, but by just cam­paig­ning the theory that the team is bon­ded together to hide a crime has ope­ned the boys to be publicly condemned.

    Irres­pon­si­ble “groups” have held pro­tests every­day hol­ding the name and pic­tu­res of ever­yone on the lac­rosse team, their pic­tu­res with hate slo­gans pas­ted all over school and surroun­ding neigh­borhood. These “groups,” exploi­ting recent events to pro­mote their agenda on gen­der issues, race, and socio-economic sta­tus, blindly attack anyone while doing nothing to pro­tect the inno­cent. To these groups, all mem­bers of the lac­rosse team are guilty, not because they’re mem­bers of the team, but because they are a means to publi­cize their cause.

    Rape is a horri­ble crime against a per­son, usually a woman, but false accu­sa­tions of rape is an equally horri­ble crime against a man (in this case – 46 men). Both can poten­tially des­troy a per­son and test the endu­rance of anyone’s cha­rac­ter. The pro­blem is while the “accu­sers” iden­tity is pro­tec­ted, the “accu­sed” iden­tity is fod­der for the press. While the “accu­ser” recei­ves imme­diate empathy and medi­cal atten­tion, coun­se­ling, “acti­vism”, and free legal advice, the “accu­sed” gets to cash in his scho­larship in exchange for legal fees.

    This could hap­pen here. Ima­gine your­self on one of UH Manoa’s ath­le­tic teams, or wor­king for a gro­cery store near cam­pus, and one per­son from your orga­ni­za­tion com­mit­ted a crime, then you were sub­jec­ted to the cha­rac­ter assas­si­na­tions, cons­tant ver­bal harass­ment, and the focal point of an unsc­ru­pu­lous dis­trict attor­ney bent on con­vic­ting “anyone” in the natio­nal media by making pro­vo­ca­tive sta­te­ments to bull­doze over anyone who hap­pens to be inno­cent to get to the per­sons invol­ved who may or may not be mem­bers on the Duke lac­rosse team.

    The Duke Stu­dent Govern­ment should be applau­ded for the way they are hand­ling the Sexual Assault and Other Acts of Vio­lent Misconduct.

    Although many mem­bers of Duke and Durham want harsher punish­ment enfor­ced upon all lac­rosse pla­yers whether inno­cent or not, whether having know­ledge of the inci­dent or not, but why stop there? There could have been other stu­dents, both male and female, at that party, and Dis­trict Attor­ney Mike Nifong sta­ted that it could have been guys not on the lac­rosse team, so why not extend any punish­ment to the entire cam­pus? Guilt or inno­cence seem not to be an issue, and many peo­ple are taking a loud stand to bull­doze over any inno­cent per­son to get to the per­sons invol­ved, so why are we only limi­ting this belief to the men’s lac­rosse team?

    The Stu­dent Govern­ment is aware that they can­not be as rec­kless in their beha­vior as “poli­ti­cal acti­vist groups”. The DSG is res­pon­si­ble for making poli­cies that would affect the entire stu­dent body for years to come, and it shouldn’t base these poli­cies on one case, espe­cially not in the middle of an inves­ti­ga­tion where no char­ges have been filed, and the DSG should defi­ni­tely not inter­ject itself as judge and pro­se­cu­tor against and entire group of peo­ple just because it may be pos­si­ble that one or a few are accused.

    There is a rea­son why in this country, a per­son is con­si­de­red inno­cent until pro­ven guilty, and it’s because of peo­ple like those rec­klessly accu­sing that the entire lac­rosse team is guilty because of a sin­gle com­plaint against a few who may not even be on the team. The DSG should be applau­ded for rising above the chaos and hate-messages by those too eager to con­demn and con­vict without regards to guilt or innocence.

  27. Nice GuyNo Gravatar says:

    Every college man should take notice of what’s hap­pe­ning at Duke Uni­ver­sity because it could easily hap­pen to us!

    Forty seven mem­bers of the lac­rosse team know how it feels to be accu­sed and publicly chas­ti­sed just for being part of a team. The mem­bers of the lac­rosse team ren­ting the house volun­ta­rily sub­mit­ted DNA during the ini­tial police inves­ti­ga­tion, some of the pla­yers weren’t even at the party, the party was throughout the entire house and yard, and only three are sus­pec­ted in the assault occu­rring inside a bath­room, so it’s very pos­si­ble that the team is telling the truth that they have no know­ledge of the inci­dent, yet the D.A. claims the team is “sto­ne­wa­lling” when it’s more than likely that they really don’t know.

    Rape is a horri­ble crime against a per­son, usually a woman, but false accu­sa­tions of rape is an equally horri­ble crime against a man (in this case – 46 men). Both can poten­tially des­troy a per­son and test the endu­rance of anyone’s cha­rac­ter. The pro­blem is while the “accu­sers” iden­tity is pro­tec­ted, the “accu­sed” iden­tity is fod­der for the press. While the “accu­ser” recei­ves imme­diate empathy and medi­cal atten­tion, coun­se­ling, “acti­vism”, and free legal advice, the “accu­sed” gets to cash in his scho­larship in exchange for legal fees.

    We live in a society that imme­dia­tely assu­mes anyone accu­sed of rape as guilty, even if he’s later found inno­cent. After such an inci­dent, his repu­ta­tion may never reco­ver. Laws writ­ten in sta­tes throughout the nation refer to the “accu­ser” as “the vic­tim” and the “accu­sed” as simply the “accu­sed.” This pre­su­med guilt is carried out in the media where the accu­sed repu­ta­tion is publicly destroyed.

    I believe that all 47 mem­bers of the lac­rosse team will be found inno­cent via DNA tes­ting, but during “Sexual Assault Pre­ven­tion Week” we’re going to be sub­jec­ted to a lot of “unba­lan­ced” rape edu­ca­tion, so I would like to balance the edu­ca­tion with some facts, for I believe that even with the DNA tes­ting exo­ne­ra­ting the team, some peo­ple and groups will con­ti­nue to tar­get the team without any attempt, if pos­si­ble, to apo­lo­gize or restitution.

    • Accor­ding to the FBI, one of every 12 claims of rape filed in the Uni­ted Sta­tes are later dee­med “unfoun­ded,” mea­ning the case was clo­sed because the alle­ged vic­tim recan­ted or because inves­ti­ga­tors found no evi­dence of a crime.
    • In Mary­land, Howard County Police clas­si­fied one out of every four rape alle­ga­tions as unfoun­ded in 1990 – 91.
    • Citing a recent USA Today article, dis­cus­sing the miracle of DNA and FBI stu­dies of sexual assault sus­pects, DNA tes­ting exo­ne­ra­ted about 30 – 35 per­cent of the more than 4,000 sexual assault sus­pects on whom the FBI had con­duc­ted DNA tes­ting over the past three years.
    • Accor­ding to Pur­due socio­lo­gist Eugene J. Kanin, in over 40 per­cent of the cases revie­wed, the com­plai­nants even­tually admit­ted that no rape had occu­rred (Archi­ves of Sexual Beha­vior, Vol. 23, No. 1, 1994).
    • In 1985, the Air Force con­duc­ted a study of 556 rape accu­sa­tions. Over 25 per­cent of the accu­sers admit­ted, either just before they took a lie detec­tor test or after they had fai­led it, that no rape occu­rred.
    • In 1996, the Depart­ment of Jus­tice repor­ted that of the roughly 10,000 sexual assault cases analy­zed with DNA evi­dence over the pre­vious seven years, 2,000 exc­lu­ded the pri­mary sus­pect, and another 2,000 were inconc­lu­sive.
    • Linda Fairs­tein, who heads the New York County Dis­trict Attorney’s Sex Cri­mes Unit and is the author of Sexual Vio­lence: Our War Against Rape, says, “there are about 4,000 reports of rape each year in Manhat­tan. Of these, about 50 per­cent simply did not hap­pen.“
    • Craig Sil­ver­man, a for­mer Colo­rado pro­se­cu­tor known for his zea­lous pro­se­cu­tion of rapists during his 16-year career, says that false rape accu­sa­tions occur with “scary fre­quency.” Sil­ver­man noted that “any honest vete­ran sex assault inves­ti­ga­tor will tell you that rape is one of the most fal­sely repor­ted cri­mes.” Accor­ding to Sil­ver­man, a Den­ver sex-assault unit com­man­der esti­ma­tes that nearly 50 per­cent of all repor­ted rape claims are false.

    I applaud Duke Uni­ver­sity for not joi­ning the rec­kless mob blindly attac­king mem­bers of the lac­rosse team, and for sho­wing con­cern for the stu­dent ath­le­tes caught in the middle of this media storm. As for every man on our cam­pus, be very aware that this could have easily hap­pen to you, and while there is wides­pread empathy for the alle­ged vic­tim, there is little if any con­cern for how these rec­kless accu­sa­tions and blind attacks harm every the poor guys caught in the middle of a mob and justice.

  28. Nice GuyNo Gravatar says:

    It’s only going to get worse

    Regar­ding 3/31/06’s “Cap­tains’ Law­yer Speak Out” Finally someone speaks for the inno­cent men caught up in this media storm. It’s outra­geous that some peo­ple feel entit­led with empo­wer­ment to con­demn, slan­der, and harass an entire group of men for the alle­ged actions of a very few. Peo­ple are won­de­ring why no one from the lac­rosse team is coming for­ward with infor­ma­tion regar­ding the alle­ged assault of a drunk strip­per. Igno­ring the fact that the alle­ged assault hap­pe­ned inside an enc­lo­sed bath­room, and most mem­bers of the team were not even pre­sent, it’s very pos­si­ble that no one, except those invol­ved, has any know­ledge of the incident.

    In today’s cli­mate where male-bashing is widely accep­ted and women are empo­we­red with the pri­vi­le­ges of “victim-hood” to slan­der and harass, all decent men and women should take notice.

    Dis­trict Attor­ney Mike Nifong threa­tens to charge team­ma­tes who didn’t com­mit or observe the alle­ged assault with aiding and abet­ting because they don’t pos­sess the infor­ma­tion he needs. This sug­gests that this case isn’t as strong as he publicly cam­paigns, which means it’s only going to get mes­sier as school offi­cials and lac­rosse team­ma­tes remain the only ones who con­ti­nue to behave res­pon­sibly in let­ting the legal pro­cess unfold. Meanwhile Dis­trict Attor­ney Mike Nifong plays his case before the public media even before any char­ges are filed, so when these young men are found to be inno­cent, they would still be thought to be guilty under some myth of “white male entitlement”.

    Not mea­ning to mini­mize indig­ni­ties suf­fe­red by any alle­ged vic­tim, the corra­lling of 46 mem­bers of the lac­rosse team was equally indig­nant and a tes­ta­ment to lazy police work. Only three men are sus­pec­ted, and most mem­bers weren’t even pre­sent, but des­pi­ca­ble peo­ple inside and outside of the police depart­ment indisc­ri­mi­na­tely accuse all 47 mem­bers as being rapists just for being on a sports team.

    Being accu­sed of a sex offense stains a man’s repu­ta­tion inde­fi­ni­tely and the tac­tics used by the police and DA to squeeze infor­ma­tion out of over forty young men, who most likely pos­sess no know­ledge of the inci­dent, has left these men con­dem­ned to be slan­de­red and haras­sed throughout cam­pus because “spe­cial inte­rest groups,” exploi­ting recent events to pro­mote their agenda on gen­der issues, race, and socio-economic sta­tus, blindly attack anyone while doing nothing to pro­tect the inno­cent. To these groups, all mem­bers of the lac­rosse team are guilty, not because they’re mem­bers of the team, but because they’re mostly white men.

    Ever­yone wit­nes­sing the rec­kless mas­sacre of these young men’s repu­ta­tions based solely on one accu­sa­tion at the encou­ra­ge­ment of “spe­cial inte­rest groups”, who thrive in this envi­ron­ment, should change their pers­pec­tive. What if you were on a sports team, and just by being a mem­ber of the team, you were sub­jec­ted to the same cha­rac­ter assas­si­na­tion, slan­der, harass­ment, and humi­lia­tion by these “spe­cial inte­rest groups” who care nothing of inno­cence or guilt, and only use the anguish of the vic­tim to pro­mote their poli­ti­cal agendas.

  29. […] I agree with her desc­rip­tion. I’d add, though, that the  lar­ger for­ces of hate, racism and sus­pi­cion spread atten­tion away from the issue of rape, to the point that major op-eds were writ­ten about the case without ever addres­sing the fact that a rape had been com­mit­ted. Yes there were undoub­tedly issues of race, class, and edu­ca­tio­nal pri­vi­lege at play in the dyna­mics of this case, but when we look at the tota­lity of the inci­dent it is the idea that such a crime could occur that is most horri­ble. To address the pro­blems of rape cul­ture, we must look around us at the cases that occur on an hourly basis where women are raped by their friends and asso­cia­tes. In a pre­vious post that was loo­sely rela­ted to the Duke rape case I dis­cus­sed the pro­blems with addres­sing every major rape case through the lense of other­ness and fear, as oppo­sed to the actual pro­blem of the pre­sence of a cul­ture of rape where the vast majo­rity of women are raped by men they know. I wrote before: Pre­sen­ting the pro­blem of rape cul­ture as a pro­blem of men on whole or worse an ill-defined sub­set of men doesn’t go towards actually pro­vi­ding a safer envi­ron­ment for women. Of course rape is a pro­blem about men, but I think depic­tions of the solu­tion that involve “taking back the night” create a stigma of other­ness towards men that will pre­vent real change from hap­pe­ning by limi­ting the efforts by peo­ple to actually reach out to their friends to bring change. What’s worse is in cases like the Duke lac­rosse gang rape the notion that the threat black women have to worry about is rich white stran­gers, other­ness is cited as a cause rather than a coin­ci­dence. Sure there were undoub­tedly other power dyna­mics at play, but the pro­blem this black woman faced is rape cul­ture, not merely elite white athletes. […]

  30. […] This case too com­plex to boil down to addres­sing only rape cul­ture and lea­ving it at that, as I’d tried to do before. The issues surroun­ding rape cul­ture per­sist and must be addres­sed to improve the lives of women of all races, clas­ses, and edu­ca­tio­nal levels. Rape cul­ture remains, but jus­tice isn’t going to to be absent from this par­ti­cu­lar case. If these boys are guilty of rape and are con­vic­ted, the case can serve rape vic­tims around Ame­rica by sho­wing that they can bring their attac­kers to jus­tice, that the world cares and will lis­ten to them. […]

  31. […] This case too com­plex to boil down to addres­sing only rape cul­ture and lea­ving it at that, as I’d tried to do before. The issues surroun­ding rape cul­ture per­sist and must be addres­sed to improve the lives of women of all races, clas­ses, and edu­ca­tio­nal levels. Rape cul­ture remains, but jus­tice isn’t going to to be absent from this par­ti­cu­lar case. If these boys are guilty of rape and are con­vic­ted, the case can serve rape vic­tims around Ame­rica by sho­wing that they can bring their attac­kers to jus­tice, that the world cares and will lis­ten to them. […]

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