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    UrbanAchieverStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:44pm

    Related: Years ago, a friend of mine here in France was married to a French high school teacher. They had a daughter. By the time their daughter was two, the wife left her husband because she suspected him of molesting their girl. She tried, during divorce proceedings, to get sole custody for this reason, or at least, to allow only supervised visits with the father.

    Long story short, joint custody was granted, no supervision. And her daughter showed signs of further molestation.
    When my friend gathered evidence against her ex - including statements from three middle-school girls that he had molested them on school field trips - she finally managed to get a case brought against her ex in a French court.

    The outcome? The case was dismissed because, according to the judge, even though she had brought strong evidence, a conviction could severely damage her ex’s reputation and career. The upshot was that he was simply moved to another public school several hours away.

    (She left the country so that unsupervised visitation would be almost impossible.)

    This shit happens everywhere.

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      freaks go all the wayUrbanAchiever
      6/07/16 2:45pm

      What. The. Fuck.

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      PrettyPrettyBunniPrincessUrbanAchiever
      6/07/16 2:47pm
      GIF
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    jinniStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:32pm

    The Daily Beast said Persky “coddled” Turner; the petitioners said the sentence was “lenient.” Yet they’re both wrong. The truth is that Brock Turner will spend more time in jail than 97 percent of rapists.

    One does not obviate the other. They’re both true.

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      dukenellingtonjinni
      6/07/16 2:39pm

      Thank you. Two things can be true— we can acknowledge that this is more than most rapists get, while maintaining that it is insufficient. Additionally, I would argue that he WAS coddled, and the judge WAS lenient, because he’s a rich white kid, drenched in privilege. Let’s be real, black and brown rapists would never receive minimum sentences out of fear that jail would be “detrimental” to their well-being. Fuck everything about this.

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      Ovdanyakaddukenellington
      6/07/16 2:44pm

      Same. SAME.

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    Missypoo50Stassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:40pm

    Wait - if the judge is a Stanford alumnus, why was he allowed to try the case? Shouldn't he have removed himself from it because of his connection to the school?

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      SL8Rgirl81Missypoo50
      6/07/16 2:43pm

      he was also a Stanford athlete... part of the brotherhood. He absolutely had a conflict of interest.

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      jinniMissypoo50
      6/07/16 2:44pm

      Not sure that this would be a reason for recusal, especially in the area.

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    BusPassTrollop curls up and diesStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:37pm

    Anyone else find it particularly crazy how that Leslie Rasmussen chick and her band Good English is actually suffering from more backlash/punishment than Brock Turner will ever see? No, just me? I bet she’s reeeeeeally reevaluating that “friendship” right about now.

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      YesYesThisAgainBusPassTrollop curls up and dies
      6/07/16 2:43pm

      I was not aware of her band or the backlash. But, I doubt she or the band will suffer more punishment than Turner will see. I have no idea what she looks like, and didn’t know she was in a band until you pointed it out. They can disband and get day jobs, or just change the name of their band, and significantly reduce that “backlash.”

      Turner will spend some time in jail, and he will always have to declare himself as a convicted felon on job applications. He will also be required to register as a sex offender which really does amount to a lifetime of punishment.

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      benjaminalloverBusPassTrollop curls up and dies
      6/07/16 3:12pm

      Our public speech has consequences. I’m just glad that gaslighting the victim and causing our heads to explode with her fucking Schrodinger’s Rape theory wasn’t the only consequence for that shit-for-brains asshole.

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    weebleswobbleStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:31pm

    Does it say what the average jail time is when looking specifically at people convicted? Since the vast majority of rapists aren’t even tried, of course any time in jail will be more than most of them. I’m interested in how his case fits in the context of other people found guilty.

    (though he wasn’t found guilty of rape, so I’m not sure how the difference in punishments would impact it)

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      juniperjonesweebleswobble
      6/07/16 2:56pm

      These stats are old, but no reason to think they are not still pretty close. (From Wikipedia). So the sentence is ABSOLUTELY "lenient" compared to a usual sentence for a *convicted* rapist.

      A study made by the U.S. Department of Justice of prison releases in 1992, involving about 80 percent of the prison population, found that the average sentence for convicted rapists was 11.8 years, while the actual time served was 5.4 years.

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      weebleswobblejuniperjones
      6/07/16 2:59pm

      Thank you. That’s definitely the stat I think is most important here. I would have no idea where to start looking at today’s equivalent but that’s a start.

      ETA: in 1997, only 2/3 of convicted rapists saw a prison sentence. For those sent to prison, average term was 14 years. Average jail time for convicted rapist was 8 months. I can’t seem to find any similar compilation of data post 1997. If true, that’s disturbing in and of itself.

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    Miriam99Stassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:48pm

    Here’s the difference: this piece of s*** was caught in the act. It’s probably the only reason he was convicted but that’s what sets him apart from many others. One of the guys who caught him was so traumatized he cried and cried. It was hard to say he said/she said (okay, she had bruises, she was unconscious, but still a slick defense attorney would have said he said/she said and talked about her “promiscuity”—in fact they still tried that). It only didn’t work here because HE WAS CAUGHT IN THE ACT. And that’s why there was a conviction and some sentence. Just let that sink in.

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      VulcansAreHeartbreakersMiriam99
      6/07/16 3:30pm

      This. And just to add to this - two men caught him in the act. One was so repulsed by what he saw it made him cry. If men hadn’t witnessed it, he would not have been convicted. And I honestly think if it had been two women instead, they might not have convicted. After all, women get so hysterical about rape. Even though one of them cried, it probably wasn’t all that bad. I freaking love those Swedes for what they did, but if they weren’t men this would be a very different case.

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      MarciamarciamarciaMiriam99
      6/07/16 3:32pm

      Yes. This. I was raped at college. I was too drunk to fight it PLUS it was in my bedroom. I invited the guy home with me. OF COURSE that didn’t mean I automatically wanted sex. But when I woke up the next day, my panties gone, memories of my NOs being ignored... The feeling of that asshole on top of me and me just wanting it to end.

      I never even contemplated reporting it. I knew it would be an uphill battle that I couldn’t handle. Now of course I know I should have at least tried because GUARANTEE that fucker did it again.

      This rapist was caught in the horrible act. That’s the only reason this is a conversation. That’s it. I swear, there are tons of women just like me. Fuck.

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    OvdanyakadStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:40pm

    Wait -

    All of these things might be facts, but that is so totally defeatist. That this man will go to jail while many others will not does NOT excuse the amount of absolute coddling and leniency that happened here.

    What’s worse is the reality that Turner wasn’t coddled at all. Persky wasn’t lenient.

    Nope sorry, this is wrong. You cannot tell me (and I know this isn’t the point and I don’t even want to go here right now) that if this man were a drop out who was not white that he would have had so many advocates. So many people rushing to save his life and not ensure that he was stigmatized to the nth degree. So many people listening to his friends or family or willing to side with them because they fear what it means to have that privilege stripped away. That benefit of the doubt.

    Unbelievable.

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      Michelle DonovanOvdanyakad
      6/07/16 3:01pm

      I know. When I read that line in the article, my jaw literally dropped. He wasn’t coddled? Persky wasn’t lenient? The fuck he wasn’t (on both counts.)

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      FeralFrigidSlutOvdanyakad
      6/07/16 3:51pm

      It was an attempt at a rhetorical flourish but she didn’t stick the landing. Possibly due to the fact that the reality is so absurd it is difficult to satirize much less subvert in a witty manner.

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    hntergrenStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:40pm

    This article is so real. Our society routinely shows us that young, wealthy, white men are viewed as having made mistakes when they end up being called “defendant.” The attitude is always “This person fucked up, but they aren’t a bad person.” I disagree, this guy is a bad person, as are others of his ilk. They have everything, the world works in their favor but it’s still not enough. They have no excuses for their behavior as far as I’m concerned. They’ve had the best educations, they come from “good families” and “good neighborhoods,” they have money, they have access, they aren’t wanting for anything, yet they still can’t manage to refrain from victimizing others or from taking what they want? They still can’t keep their noses clean? The still can’t help but abuse others? Fuck em.

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      benjaminalloverhntergren
      6/07/16 3:15pm

      They’ve had the best educations, they come from “good families” and “good neighborhoods,” they have money, they have access, they aren’t wanting for anything

      To the judge and probation officer, and to all the enabling assholes he’s surrounded by, these are mitigating factors instead of aggravating factors. I don’t really get the logic.

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      hntergrenbenjaminallover
      6/07/16 3:15pm

      I feel you...

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    benjaminalloverStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 3:08pm

    There are thousands of men looking only for the categorical preservation of the good reputations of the right kind of men, who neither see nor hear a victim asking for something as simple as justice.

    Part of this is the fact that, as the victim so eloquently put it, the rapist’s suffering is visible and concrete to these people while hers is not. That’s really inherent in the nature of the trauma. These men (and his female friend) have displayed a willful refusal to consider the victim a person in the same way that the rapist is a person. The rapist has a future, a family, a youth to lose. Victims are not humanized in the same way.

    But the other part of it is this toxic bullshit habit of describing rape as an accident. You can only put the trauma experienced by a rapist and the trauma experienced by a victim on the same level if you don’t really consider it a crime, but just a sort of passive thing that “happened” to both of them. It’s not just about our tendency to ascribe more agency than is reasonable to the victim, it’s also about our tendency to ascribe as little agency as possible to the rapist, as if he too is the victim of unfortunate circumstances rather than a criminal scarcely better than a murderer.

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      VeggieTartbenjaminallover
      6/07/16 3:21pm

      Who was it who said “The rapist has a future; the victim as a past” with regards to how society tends to minimize what happened to the woman and coddle the perpetrator?

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      benjaminalloverVeggieTart
      6/07/16 3:27pm

      I don’t know but that’s sadly apt.

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    kamla deviStassa Edwards
    6/07/16 2:41pm

    A few big takeaways from this case:

    They basically put her on trial. The woman in question was basically put on trial, so much that she had to stand in a line-up.

    Second, the cruelty of this act makes it hard to believe that these were the actions of a first-time offender. She is probably not his first victim, and sadly, I doubt it will be his last.

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      VeggieTartkamla devi
      6/07/16 3:27pm

      Rape is the only crime where the victim is treated worse than the perpetrator. Isn’t it par for the course for defense attorneys to try to destroy a rape victim on the stand? Sometimes even law enforcement is less than sympathetic when a woman reports being raped.

      And I’ve said before that I have no doubt that he’s pulled this shit before. It’s just the first time he was caught. And once he serves his pitifully short time in jail, he’ll just be more careful about it. Even the victim knew that to think if she hadn’t gone, it wouldn’t have happened isn’t true. It would have happened to somebody else.

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