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The MeToo movement underscores the necessity for victims to come forward as soon after the incident as possible. Cosby had over sixty accusers. For purposes of this discussion let’s assume all sixty allegations were true. If the first had raised her hand, she would have been ignored. The second would have been ignored too. But the third would have been taken seriously. And victims 55 through 60 would have been spared. Similarly, Weinstein would have reached his day of reckoning far earlier. Coming forward early is a brave action that protects other women even if justice is not served in that first instance.

Coming forward early also protects men from false allegations because they can be confronted while memories and evidence are still fresh.

MeToo thinks of itself as attacking a patriarchal society. But in my view it indicts itself equally. Rape is already illegal. There are already venues to make claims and seek redress. Vitriol directed against “the Man” would be better harnessed into support channels to embolden women to report.

Right, PlanC. It's best if victims come forward soon - but who would have believed the first Cosby accuser so many years ago?

And of course I listen to Punk & Straightedge - when my son is visiting.

Before he moved out in 1990, maybe he played it when I wasn't home....

Can you really imagine any judge or jury convicting either party?

Umm, yeah. Google "University of Cincinnati, title IX both drunk"

The wrinkle is the guy filed charges (with the university) first (because his friend got booted because said girl made charges against said friend and he didn't want to get jammed up (his story); she says it was retribuition). She got the boot.

So the university basically took the position that if both are dfunk, one MUST be a victim. Apparently first to file makes you the victim.

It's all kinds of fucked up.

[This message edited by WornDown at 4:07 PM, October 5th (Friday)]

If the first had raised her hand, she would have been ignored. The second would have been ignored too. But the third would have been taken seriously.

Three women (possibly more) have raised their hands recently and they haven't been taken seriously.

Title IX investigations/hearings by universities have been a major source of bureaucratic failure. Universities feel themselves to be under intense pressure by families to make their campuses "safe" from sexual assault. The trouble is multilayered: (a) often, the people running the Title IX investigations are under-qualified, (b) the hearing process is ill-defined, (c) the hearings tend to be kangaroo courts.

Three women (possibly more) have raised their hands recently and they haven't been taken seriously.

Well.. This is a bit of different situation, this is a very high profile case, and, like it or not, no matter what, people seem to crawl out of the woodwork when there's a lot of money/fame/etc to be gained by jumping on a case. Is that what these women are doing? I have no idea, but I do know that if 3 women accused my friend of rape (not famous, not rich, no "reason" to accuse him) I'd feel very differently about it then I do 3 women accusing someone famous. No, not the least bit fair IF these women are victims. But, sadly, I think it's justified because fame attracts bad actors. It could also be that this guy is a royal POS, in fact, he almost certainly is because of all the time he's spent in political circles, that has a way of turning anyone into a POS.

Numb&Dumb - That absolutely sounds like rape to me. It's not ok and there's no high-fives to be had. I'm sorry and I hope you are able to discuss and sort through this with someone.

Unhinged: If they had raised the matter contemporaneously there would have been a different result. Perhaps there would have corroborating witnesses and evidence.

I'm probably getting my decades wrong here but did this accused college thing in the news happen before or after the peewee herman incident?

Let's keep the politics out of this. It's an important conversation to have, but this isn't the only high profile case involving this lately. Think Cosby and Weinstein. While the circumstances were different in that they already had power, the end result is the same. Accusers came out of the woodwork years after the alleged incidents took place.

My apologies to you, MH, and just about everyone else.

Three women (possibly more) have raised their hands recently and they haven't been taken seriously.

What? Haven't been taken seriously?

The claims were investigated by the Senate committee's investigators and the FBI. The claims were investigated by the Washington Post, NYTimes, WSJ, the ABC, NBC, CNN and CBS news organizations, along with probably dozens of other news outlets. The Senate held a hearing where one testified.

Yet after all this, not a SINGLE person came forward to corroborate any of the claims? Not a SINGLE piece of evidence turned up. But a lot of people who were cited as witnesses by the accusers did come forward to say they they were never there/never saw anything.

So, I don't know how you can say "weren't taken seriously," unless you mean blindly believed, which appears to have been a good thing.

Evil won

Evil won

I don’t know whether to laugh at this or to roll my eyes. Here’s both:

I don’t want to break any guidelines so I’d like to move it away from the political aspect of this whole thing, except to say it seems that personal political preferences are coloring folks’ perspective on how they view this and I think that aspect, letting personal political views inform your view on a victim of a horrendous assault as well as on someone accused of a horrendous act, does a disservice to all women who come forward. I worry that this episode will be used by both men and women in the future either to discount claims of assault or to levy accusations without anything to support the claim. Unserious comments like the one I quoted are tremendously unhelpful because they eschew all sense of reason and thought. Folks will use comments like that to discount all accusations and that will harm women who want to come forward.

Regardless, as a number of people said earlier, this is a very important conversation to have and I wish more families would have it with their men - husbands, sons, etc.

For the women who have gone through this, and I speak from personal experience regarding my own children, it’s a living hell. As a father, I felt impotent. I couldn’t protect them and couldn’t help them. The only thing I could do was be there to support them, listen, and love them. There was a sense of helplessness my daughter’s had. There wasn’t much they could do against their attackers. For one, it was an anonymous attack in a parking lot - she couldn’t even see his face. For my daughter who knew the one who tried to push into sex, she felt helpless that her hands were tied about actions she could take. If she said anything, she’d be a pariah at school and it’d follow her wherever she went afterward.

To me, that’s why #metoo is important. It’s not about the accused. It’s about women feeling empowered to express themselves and tell their stories. In my family, my daughters’ attacks were prior to #metoo. So our version of that happened within our family unit and friend circle. Telling their story was helpful to my girls. IMO, every woman who’s gone through this in whatever degree should have that avenue to tell their story. I hope that in this sense, encouraging and empowering women to tell their stories, #metoo remains an important part of our society going forward.

I'm sure for some people their political views have colored their perspectives. Of course, this is also a convenient excuse to dismiss other people's views and opinions. People can surprise you. I'm sure you know that. People will do horrendous shit that seems extremely out of character. My wife sure as shit surprised the fuck out of me. I would have never believed she was capable of the shit she pulled until it happened. I can only imagine how her co-workers and friends would react if I told them what a psycho-bitch-demon-from-hell she turned into.

It's starts, I think, with recognizing that even the most respectable and admired people are capable of "evil."

You can roll your eyes or laugh all you want to. I can roll my eyes and laugh at your eye-rolling and laughter. That doesn't get us very far, does it?

It's starts, I think, with recognizing that even the most respectable and admired people are capable of "evil."

You can roll your eyes or laugh all you want to. I can roll my eyes and laugh at your eye-rolling and laughter. That doesn't get us very far, does it?

Please. Never argued that respectable people can’t do evil things. Nor did I dismiss anyone’s views. But when people throw around the term “evil” based on unsubstantiated accusations where identified witnesses say they never saw the accused do such a thing, it deserves nothing less than eye rolling and laughter. In fact, I believe it’s our duty to call that out with derision. Godwin’s Law applies. None of us know what really did or didn’t happen. We may have formed opinions, but they’re not based on anything factual. So in this instance, based on no actual knowledge, if it’s acceptable to label him as “evil,” then what do you call people who actually do evil things? Then all sense and reason has gone out the window and all we’re left with is base name calling. Talk about not getting very far.

C'mon, Walloped.

I didn't see your response to my hypothetical choice between 2 people. So here's another situation that I'd like to see your response to.

A car is seen driving erratically down a street. It hits and does serious damage to a parked car (yours?), backs up, drives on. Someone (you?) sees the accident, can't ID the car but states he thinks the driver looks like the son of a rich, powerful man, a known bully, in town.

The son is interrogated by the cops. They know he's been seen drunk or high around his school, though he's never been arrested. They know he's bragged about his drunk exploits on FB.

The kid denies driving the car vehemently and obnoxiously AND he denies that he's ever drunk to excess AND he's downright disrespectful to 'white' cops and disrespectful to 'non-white' cops. ('White' in quotes because 'white' people's skin is way different from the color white.)

Should the cops let him go because of his denial (and his father's bullying), or should they investigate further? Or should they bear down hard on him because they think he chose disrespect because he knows he's guilty and simply didn't think of trying to act respectful?

Personally, I most definitely think any honest cops should and would continue to investigate the kid.

What do you think?

sisoon - I didn’t respond before because I thought your hypothetical was a straw man written in a way to achieve a desired answer, as was this example frankly, and I honestly wasn’t interested in debating this. I can write a similar hypothetical that would make it easy to point the other way.

Neither one was ever my point.

My point has always been that no one should be vilified for having a different opinion or painted as anti-woman or pro-assault. My wife is a victim and the mother of 3 girls who are all victims. We are acutely aware of the trauma assault has on women and have lived through the pain of it and the aftermath. Yet, after stating that she believed Dr. Ford, cried and prayed for her, but also believed him, she was torn a new one for not following the Group Think and calling him the devil incarnate. Somehow, that’s called not supporting women and victims.

And it’s this way of thinking, that you either toe the line or you’re now a pariah, that I believe is not only dangerous, but it’s insulting and dismissive of women in general. It says that women aren’t capable of independent thought and reason and must follow the herd like robotic lemmings. My wife’s opinion, and my daughter’s, victims themselves, are fair minded and reasonable. They sympathize and empathize with victims of all sorts. They’ve been to therapy, support groups, etc. They are passionate about #metoo. Yet they also believe that as Americans we must have a sense of fairness and there has to be more than what has been provided in order to condemn someone. The horror! And because they support victims but also aren’t willing to condemn someone, they’re labeled and attacked. It’s shameful.

Mea culpa - I fully admit to playing a bit of devil’s advocate here, throwing a few logs onto the fire and stoking the flames, because I was incensed on their behalf. We are a diverse country with folks from a wide set of backgrounds. People have different opinions and ways to view things. Just because one person’s opinion does not align with yours, even about a subject that is deeply personal, does not make them wrong or bad or anti anything. And it’s wrong to shame them for it. If we can’t all agree on that at least, then woe is us.

My point has always been that no one should be vilified for having a different opinion or painted as anti-woman or pro-assault.

In general, I agree. The recent charges of 'Evil' that I've heard about were definitely uncalled for at the time the charges were laid.

Mea culpa - I fully admit to playing a bit of devil’s advocate here, throwing a few logs onto the fire and stoking the flames....

What? I simply can't understand doing that....

I expect you'll give me credit for not accepting accusations without sufficient evidence. I didn't believe our 3rd governor back (a guy I didn't vote for) was guilty of corruption until the verdict came back.

Gotta run....