#MeToo’ism and the age of sexual victimization.

[Athos_131]

Billie Jean King: Serena is still treated differently than male athletes

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[Athos_131]

Proposed Rules Would Reduce Sexual Misconduct Inquiries, Education Dept. Estimates

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[Athos_131]

California professor, writer of confidential Brett Kavanaugh letter, speaks out about her allegation of sexual assault


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[Athos_131]

Read the letter Christine Blasey Ford sent accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct

July 30 2018

CONFIDENTIAL

Senator Dianne Feinstein

Dear Senator Feinstein;

I am writing with information relevant in evaluating the current nominee to the Supreme Court.

As a constituent, I expect that you will maintain this as confidential until we have further opportunity to speak.

Brett Kavanaugh physically and sexually assaulted me during high school in the early 1980's. He conducted these acts with the assistance of REDACTED.

Both were one to two years older than me and students at a local private school.

The assault occurred in a suburban Maryland area home at a gathering that included me and four others.

Kavanaugh physically pushed me into a bedroom as I was headed for a bathroom up a short stair well from the living room. They locked the door and played loud music precluding any successful attempt to yell for help.

Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with REDACTED, who periodically jumped onto Kavanaugh. They both laughed as Kavanaugh tried to disrobe me in their highly inebriated state. With Kavanaugh's hand over my mouth I feared he may inadvertently kill me.

From across the room a very drunken REDACTED said mixed words to Kavanaugh ranging from "go for it" to "stop."

At one point when REDACTED jumped onto the bed the weight on me was substantial. The pile toppled, and the two scrapped with each other. After a few attempts to get away, I was able to take this opportune moment to get up and run across to a hallway bathroom. I locked the bathroom door behind me. Both loudly stumbled down the stair well at which point other persons at the house were talking with them. I exited the bathroom, ran outside of the house and went home.

I have not knowingly seen Kavanaugh since the assault. I did see REDACTED once at the REDACTED where he was extremely uncomfortable seeing me.

I have received medical treatment regarding the assault. On July 6 I notified my local government representative to ask them how to proceed with sharing this information . It is upsetting to discuss sexual assault and its repercussions, yet I felt guilty and compelled as a citizen about the idea of not saying anything.

I am available to speak further should you wish to discuss. I am currently REDACTED and will be in REDACTED.

In confidence, REDACTED.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Donald Trump, Jr. Posts Instagram Apparently Mocking Kavanaugh's Accuser

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[Lois]

It is my understanding that Brett Kavanaugh was a minor at the time.  Should stuff that happens when people are young and stupid come back to bite them in the ass?

I'm not surprised, given how inebriated he reported was, that he may not remember it happened.

I also wonder who instigated it.  Brett Kavanaugh or his buddy?

I do not want Brett Kavanaugh seated on the Supreme Court given his views on executive power and other issues.  Also it sounds too much like Trump made a deal with him, as I'm sure Trump made a deal with his doctor to give him a glowing medical report in exchange for becoming head of the VA.  I'm glad that did not work out.

[IrishGirl]

It is my understanding that Brett Kavanaugh was a minor at the time.  Should stuff that happens when people are young and stupid come back to bite them in the ass?

Well, at the moment there is a push to "retroactively withdraw consent" meaning that you can consent at the time...but withdraw even years later.

https://www.chronicle.com/article/Sexual-Paranoia-Strikes/190351

https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/7qqpii/consent_can_be_revoked_at_any_time_including/

So, I guess the answer to that question is: "It depends on which side you are firmly on."

[psiberzerker]

Being underage is not an excuse for doing sexual things, you're too young to be doing, BY LAW.  That's another Sexual Misconduct charge, right there.  Likewise, underage drinking doesn't really excuse that either.  In what fantasy land does breaking more laws absolve you of sexual misconduct?

Yes, a pervasive pattern of anti-social disregard for people's rights, and the law, should come back to bite you if you ever plan on presiding over the highest court in the land.  

[Athos_131]

Being underage is not an excuse for doing sexual things, you're too young to be doing, BY LAW.  That's another Sexual Misconduct charge, right there.  Likewise, underage drinking doesn't really excuse that either.  In what fantasy land does breaking more laws absolve you of sexual misconduct?

Yes, a pervasive pattern of anti-social disregard for people's rights, and the law, should come back to bite you if you ever plan on presiding over the highest court in the land.  

#Resist

[Lois]

Generally minors are not considered fully responsible for their actions, that is why we have juvinile courts.  But he was close enough to the age of 18 to be tried as an adult had a complaint been made.

[psiberzerker]

He was also drinking underage.  "I was drunk" is not an affirmative defense for vehicular manslaughter, either.

[Levorotatory]

Being underage is not an excuse for doing sexual things, you're too young to be doing, BY LAW.  That's another Sexual Misconduct charge, right there.  Likewise, underage drinking doesn't really excuse that either.  In what fantasy land does breaking more laws absolve you of sexual misconduct?

Yes, a pervasive pattern of anti-social disregard for people's rights, and the law, should come back to bite you if you ever plan on presiding over the highest court in the land.  

Being underage is no excuse for assaulting someone, nor is being intoxicated.   That said, in most places teenage criminals are not treated the same way as older people who commit the same crimes.  Sentences are lighter and records are often sealed because we know young people are both more likely to make stupid mistakes and more likely to adjust their behavior after they are caught.  Likewise, I would suggest some leniency is in order with early experiences with intoxicants, when users may not be aware of how they will react.

On the other hand, it isn't unreasonable to hold a judge to a higher standard if there is any suggestion that he might not have changed his attitudes over the intervening decades.

[Athos_131]

What the man accused of being part of Kavanaugh’s alleged sexual assault had to say about women’s sexuality

A quote from a playwright runs alongside the family photos on Mark Judge’s page in his high school yearbook: “Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.”

Judge’s yearbook entry appears one page before the bio of his classmate at Georgetown Preparatory School, federal judge and Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh. Both men graduated in 1983 — a year after they allegedly locked a girl inside a bedroom at a house party, where she says a drunken Kavanaugh pinned her to a bed and tried to strip her while a similarly drunken Judge watched and laughed.

Both men have denied the accusation, which Christine Blasey Ford went public with this week in The Washington Post. Judge told the New York Times that not only did he never see a sexual assault, but that such behavior would be wildly out of character for the Catholic-raised-and-educated boys who went to Georgetown Prep in the early ’80s.

What Judge has written in his career as a journalist and author is another matter.

In two memoirs, Judge depicted his high school as a nest of debauchery where students attended “masturbation class,” “lusted after girls” from nearby Catholic schools and drank themselves into stupors at parties. He has since renounced that lifestyle and refashioned himself as a conservative moralist — albeit one who has written about “the wonderful beauty of uncontrollable male passion.”

Judge credits Georgetown Prep as the place he learned to write, even as he blames it for sending him down the path to alcoholism and immorality.

He was caption editor for his yearbook, which included lines like “Ebony and Ivory” beneath a photo of a white and a black student, and “Do these guys beat their wives?” beneath a group photo of several boys.

In his 2005 memoir, “God and Man at Georgetown Prep,” he wrote that he co-published the school’s underground student newspaper in his senior year, dedicating it largely to documenting the school’s party scene. One issue pictured a music teacher at a bachelor party “chugging a beer, surrounded by a group of us with raised mugs, sitting down while being entertained by the stripper.”

Judge never wrote about any sexual violence at those parties, nor did he mention Kavanaugh attending any. But Judge’s 1997 memoir, “Wasted,” references a “Bart O’Kavanaugh” character who passes out drunk and throws up in a car.

In Judge’s telling, it took him years to realize the error of his high school ways. He eventually got sober, rediscovered Catholicism and briefly took a teaching job at Georgetown University.

Academia didn’t suit Judge, apparently. He left the school in the mid-90s and wrote his first column for the Weekly Standard about his experience there:

“I saw course descriptions requiring students to read comic books and watch the feminist film Thelma and Louise,” he wrote, “and academic papers proclaiming that all courses not named ‘Women’s Studies’ or ‘African-American (or other) Studies’ are ‘men’s studies . . . white-defined, ethnocentric, and implicitly racist.’ ”

Judge has written dozens of columns in the decades since, including several for this newspaper. Femininity, masculinity and sexuality are perennial themes. He has written that disposable razors are too feminine, that former president Barack Obama is practically a woman, and that gay men have infiltrated the priesthood.

He has also written repeatedly about his thoughts on sexual violence, which might make him an interesting character witness if Ford’s accusations against Kavanaugh result in a prolonged public investigation.

In general, Judge has been unsparing of men accused of assault, including the conservative Senate candidate Roy Moore, and his condemnation of male aggression sometimes bleeds into critiques on women’s behavior, as when he wrote last year for Acculturated:

“There’s never any excuse to rape, a crime that I think is almost akin to murder because the rapist kills a part of the human soul. And yet what women wear and their body language also send signals about their sexuality.”

Two years earlier, in an ode to “sexy” pulp novels, Judge lamented “social justice warriors” who confuse rape with innocent demonstrations of masculinity. He wrote then of “an ambiguous middle ground, where the woman seems interested and indicates, whether verbally or not, that the man needs to prove himself to her.”

“If that man is any kind of man, he’ll allow himself to feel the awesome power, the wonderful beauty, of uncontrollable male passion,” Judge continued. To illustrate his point, he linked to a scene from the 1981 film “Body Heat,” in which the hero forcibly breaks into a woman’s home and is rewarded with a kiss.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

I Believe Her

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[Lois]

I think it is possibly the two boys don't even remember the incident.  After all, they weren't traumatized by it.  It was just a joke to them.

Spoiled privledged boys.  They have affluenza.

And for them a girl is nothing but an object to amuse themselves with.

[Katiebee]

I know the feeling of victimization, and the terror while it is happening. I truly believe that there is no forgiveness for them.

[psiberzerker]

I know the feeling of victimization, and the terror while it is happening. I truly believe that there is no forgiveness for them.

Also, it takes a special form of defect to overlook that obvious fear, and keep victimizing someone.  Even drunk, even young, and reckless.  I'm sure there's lots of normal men, who've never been there, and can make excuses about her getting cold feet, or changing her mind after the fact, but someonee with a shred of empathy, and decency can't do that.  Can't attempt to rape a professor, ignoring her obvious fear, then high five, and grab some more beers afterwards.

It's easy to make excuses, but honestly, there is no excuse, and guys like that don't just get better.  They tend to get worse (In this case through co-escalation) even if they don't get rich, famous, and powerful.  What I can't understand is grown women, who have been victimized, turning around to defend such obvious monsters, and their flunkies.  Much less with such flimbsy excuses as using underage drinking to justify attempted rape.

When they really should know better.

[IrishGirl]

I know the feeling of victimization, and the terror while it is happening. I truly believe that there is no forgiveness for them.

I can very much relate to that.  But I have also read Kafka and believe a balance in all things is necessary

[psiberzerker]

I have also read Kafka and believe a balance in all things is necessary

Okay, you're going to have to provide some context on that.  I've read Kafka too, I'm at a total loss as to how that relates to attempted rape.

[IrishGirl]

I have also read Kafka and believe a balance in all things is necessary

Okay, you're going to have to provide some context on that.  I've read Kafka too, I'm at a total loss as to how that relates to attempted rape.