I am relieved to see a discussion of the effects of patriarchy on men, rather than simply being agents of patriarchal exploitation. I believe that if we really want to win this battle, we have to give more room to seeing men as victims along with women. no one really profits from sexism. perhaps some people profit in monetary or sexual ways, but anyone involved in sexism compromises healthy relationships for...well...sex, money, and sexist self-reveling.

I think I fundamentally disagree that his race has anything to do with the fact that we are disgusted with him. People are always disgusted with rapists. I know some very racist people, and even they don't discriminate among rapists.

I don't really get the point you're making, Samhita.

Interesting points.

I've been trying to keep half an eye on how media presentations of AJA have turned out, but I don't get to see as much of it here in the UK. Thank heavens for Feministing!

Have you come across some representations which you think have been playing, consciously or unconsciously, into the stereotype of the other? I'd be really interested to read them.

This is exactly the kind of feministing post that drives me crazy. First of all, the headline here is factually incorrect - the article that *you quote* specifies that he was convicted of ONE count of rape and 15 counts of sexual assault, not twenty counts of rape.

More importantly, however, you then go on to say "I also think the fact that he is South Asian makes him an easy person to find guilty and throw our (deserved) disgust at, since he is not American, but an "other" that engages in those deplorable things that "others" do." Do you have ANY basis for saying that about this case? Because there's a pretty enormous logical leap from "jury convicted a South Asian man of sexual assault" and "if he was white and they had the same evidence, people would have been less willing to convict him".

I'm confused here, too. The title of this post is wrong. Even if you argue that his convictions were too light (which you don't), he was still only received 16 convictions... so where is the 20 coming from? Or am I missing something?

I also don't understand the jump to your argument that he is "an easy person to find guilty and throw our (deserved) disgust at, since he is not American, but an "other" that engages in those deplorable things that "others" do". In what ways has this happened? It doesn't seem present in the article you linked to. I don't disagree with the theory. I just don't see any of it manifested in this case. People are paying attention to the case because of his work, not because of his race.

I haven't been following this story, so my confusion very well might be a lack of knowledge. Help?

Ok I could be wrong here, but I think that she's saying that she thinks this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to abuses within the modeling industry. This probably happens A LOT because of the nature of the industry, yet very rarely do we hear of a case about it. I mean, let's be honest, how often do we hear about a successful rape prosecution at all?

I think it's pretty justified to suspect that there are a lot of sexual assaults within the modeling industry that aren't being reported to the police or aren't being successfully prosecuted. And when rapes ARE reported, it's easy to view them as isolated incidents instead of looking deeper and seeing how an entire culture, or in this case an entire industry, might be supporting and perpetuating sexual violence.

It's especially tempting not to look deeper when the rapist is not white, not rich, or an immigrant - it's THOSE people who commit rapes, sexual abuse can't possibly be normalized within the industry. So I thought Samhita was trying to say it's great that this asshole was convicted, but let's resist the temptation to "other" him, and instead investigate how fucked up the whole industry might be.

That's what I got out of the post anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong, Samhita.

What do you support if not incarceration? Rehab?

I'm curious.

The title and content of this blog post, as already pointed out in comments, is contradicted in the article that your quote.

I'm also unclear about the idea that you "generally don't support incarceration". Can you clarify that? I get being aware of the prison industrial complex, and I agree that there are a lot of people in prison and jail that shouldn't be (minor drug charges come to mind). But a serial sexual predator is one of those people that should be incarcerated. If you don't support that, what would you like to see done?

While I'm at it, I have to take issue with the term "modelizing" in this context (or any, really). If I recall correctly, that was a term used by the characters on Sex and the City to describe men that date models exclusively. That, in and of itself, to me is not deplorable, but could be a symptom of a man with some weird attitudes about women. To call this man's actions "taking modelizing to an even more deplorable level" is trivializing the assaults and rapes that he committed. When someone dates models, at those women are agents, and consenting.

sorry to be a jerk about word choice, but you really can't be too careful about those things.

I think this is a very insightful post, and part of the confusion in the comments is due to the difference between overt and covert racism, the latter of which is much more apparent in our society, if not as spectacularly as the former. (Which is not to say that overt/covert is a perfect binary by any means - it's often contingent upon who is speaking and who is listening.) When covert racism is called out, the natural reaction of privileged individuals is to deny its possibility/plausibility. In this case, since we're evaluating cases of rape and sexual assault, there's a powerful compulsion to deny any extenuating circumstances, and there's definitely not a "racism smoking gun" here. But bubbling beneath the surface, like Samhita mentioned, are the narratives of colonial fantasy - the fear of brown men assaulting white women, and the concomitant accessibility of brown female bodies to white men (Duke Lacrosse comes to mind as support for the idea that white male rapists' POV are placed under less scrutiny than that of their accusers, though that raises questions about domestic vs. transnational/colonial racism). These are legitimate questions, and just because there isn't overt evidence in Samhita's last paragraph doesn't mean that this case can't be evaluated in light of those powerful narratives.

I guess I just feel like immediately denying any possibility that race had anything to do with this is not the most useful route or the road that will lead to fruitful discussion.

I'm a little confused about the discussion of race also. It seems to suggest that if he had been White, we wouldn't question his guilt, but since he isn't, there's a pretty good chance he was only convicted because he is South Asian?

...to situate it within the historical power relations at play in the narratives surrounding the sexual assault of white women by brown men.

Uh, what?

In this country, there is a long and horrible history of racist assumptions that black men are out to violate white women. Where is the evidence that these racist attitudes apply to Asians, specifically Indians? Is there any evidence or are you just pulling this out of nowhere?

Is there significant evidence that Asians are more likely to be incarcerated, for any crime, than white Americans?

Racism against Asians certainly does exist in this country, but it doesn't follow that that racism manifests itself in the same way as it does against African Americans. I've yet to see anything in our culture that indicates an overwhelming white fear of Indian sexuality and oversexed Indian men.

on google your title still reads wrong
there is only 1 count of rape. the rest of the counts are basically attempted kiss, delinquency of a minor etc. if you followed this case you will see thet this is pure racism and that this person is being victimized

http://www.indiawest.com/readmore.aspx?id=618&sid=1
Guilty Verdicts Stun Jon’s Family, Friends
By MICHEL W. POTTS
indiawest.com November 20, 2008 02:30:00 PM

LOS ANGELES — The benches in courtroom 103, located on the ninth floor of the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center here, were packed to capacity Nov. 13 to hear what verdicts the jury had reached in the nearly two-month long trial of fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander.

In addition to members from the print and television media, who had never bothered to cover the trial since the first day of the opening statements last September, the back benches were filled with supporters from the district attorney’s office.

Jon’s sister Sanjana sat in the front row bench holding hands with her mother Shashi. On either side of them, and all along the bench behind them, were family friends, many of whom had attended nearly every day of the trial and were convinced of Jon’s innocence.

But as the verdicts were being read one at a time by the court clerk and the word “guilty” kept being repeated over and over, Sanjana grew distraught, tearing up and burying her head in a friend’s shoulder next to her.

Then, when the court clerk read aloud that Jon was guilty of forcible rape, the most serious charge brought against him by Jessie B. which had led to his arrest in March of last year, Sanjana doubled over, her head pressed against her knees and silently crying.

Her mother Shashi stared straight ahead, her eyes red and brimming. A few feet away from her, dressed in a grey suit offset by a yellow tie, Jon sat stoically, his expression never changing, as he listened to the guilty verdicts piling up against him.

If they were stunned that the jury found him guilty on 16 counts, his lawyers didn’t show it. As the verdicts were being announced, Donald Marks was busy writing notes on a yellow legal pad, more than likely preparing the first of many appeals.

Aside from forcible rape, many of the charges sounded more horrendous than they actually were. To commit a lewd act upon a child, for example, meant kissing or fondling an underage girl and, except for one who was 15 years old at the time, the victims were 17 years old when such acts took place.

The charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor simply meant that Jon had served a 17-year-old girl a mixed drink made with alcohol.

And as for possession or control of child pornography, Jon did not have pictures of nude toddlers, as the charge suggested, but had merely stored in his laptop computer the nude and semi-nude photos a few of the victims had e-mailed him before they met.

However, that Jon had been found guilty of sexual battery in the case of Stacy F. was “the biggest surprise” for the defense team, attorney Leonard Levin later admitted India-West.

To find someone guilty of such a charge, “you have to touch the person’s genital area, and all she said was that he touched her thigh, which would not qualify at all, and yet the jury found him guilty on that count,” he said, adding that the defense team thought they had put on a strong case discrediting the testimony of the other victims as well.

“We felt there was a great deal of evidence pointing to their fabrication, their contact with Jon after the alleged assaults and continued contact, the inconsistencies in their testimony and their denials on the stand, and what was later proven to be true through cell phone records and so forth,” Levin said.

As witnesses for the prosecution, nearly every victim broke down in tears as she emotionally recounted what Jon had done to her, but as soon as any one of the defense lawyers approached to question her, the demeanor immediately changed.

A look of barely concealed hostility could be seen in their eyes before the first question by the defense lawyer was even asked, as though they felt it was a personal affront that anyone should question their veracity, even when they were caught in a lie.

Many of the victims appeared duplicitous on the stand. Early on in the trial, one victim called herself “naive” and said she was “shocked” by Jon’s behavior. Yet the defense team was frustrated when the judge refused to enter into evidence proof that she had worked as a stripper when she was 19 years old.

Another victim denied she had sent “provocative” photos of herself to Jon shortly before meeting him, even after the defense proved she had sent them from her cell phone account. When she was caught, she immediately changed her account, restricted access to the photos, and continued to deny she had ever sent them to Jon when brought back to the stand.

Moreover, Amanda C. testified that Jon was “aggressive” and “mean” when he asked her to undress while videotaping her. But the videotape shows her giggling the entire time and willfully stripping off her clothing without the slightest hesitation or concern.

Inexplicably, even though the tape contradicts her testimony and given that Amanda C. testified that Jon never actually penetrated her, the jury nevertheless found him guilty on the charge of sexual penetration with a foreign object.

Overall, the trial was hardly dramatic, with no heated exchanges between the prosecution and the defense, no theatrics during cross-examination of witnesses, no flustering the witness into a confession, nothing like what is seen in the popular television courtroom dramas.

In fact, on the day the last closing argument was given by Levin, which other lawyers said was one of the best they had ever heard,

http://indiapost.com/article/usnews/4506/
Shock & disbelief at Anand Jon verdict
Tuesday, 11.18.2008, 06:42am (GMT-7)

LOS ANGELES: In a travesty of justice Anand Jon was found guilty of 16 of the 23 charges against him; not guilty on four counts and deadlocked on three. A travesty, because the defense was surprisingly adept at eliminating any doubt that the girls accusing him had lied. Many people present in the court for the verdict were simply stunned. Richard Bernard, defense technical consultant, wondered if he was watching the same trial as the jurors.

That sentiment echoed through the hallway afterwards. All evidence shown during the trial and particularly at closing pointed toward Anand Jon’s innocence, not guilt. Keep in mind that on the eve of trial the prosecution dropped over 50 percent of their case. Most likely because these were the weaker counts. As the trial unfolded and each witness impeached (proven to be lying) it lead the defense to wonder if the girls on the stand lied so much, how badly would those that were dropped? During trial, the prosecution dropped another two counts.

It appears that the objective for the District Attorney’s office is simply to win, not find the truth. If the truth were paramount, they would have dropped the entire case. It appears that this for them is just another case, irrespective of the lives that are going to be affected.

If these girls lied and were caught, why aren’t they prosecuted?

Isn’t perjury a crime?

In the end there was one rape count that Jon was convicted on. That charge coincided with a rape kit that was negative for signs of trauma - how do you convict on that?

The defense claimed it was consensual. Isn’t it then up to the prosecution to prove otherwise?

Where was that proof?

The audience learned from the trial that it simply did not exist. Another lesson that was learned from this trial - it seems that you don’t need evidence to convince a jury. A lot of he-said / she-said will accomplish the same result.

The prosecution had no hard evidence, only people complaining. They complained about Jon being rude, messy, unkempt, unhygienic, over-promising, tardy - all things that the girls could find unredeeming, nonetheless they do not equate to prison time.

When were those complaints made? Some were six years later with people jumping on the bandwagon. All complaints were made after March 2007 and what a coincidence, after Anand Jon’s company, Jeanisis, was funded by Wall Street investors. There’s already one civil suit filed and several others waiting in the wings.

In fact, it appears that one of the girls didn’t even call in to the police herself, her civil attorney was the first to contact Detective George Elwell with a claim of assault. Those charges were later dropped pre-trial. That one rape kit report that came back negative was projected in court showed that Jessie B had smoked marijuana within 96 hours prior to coming down to Los Angeles. It also showed that she had sex with someone else on February 28, five days before seeing Jon. Jessie B flew down to Los Angeles on her own volition, she, as were the others, was not forced to fly to LA with a gun to her head.

A shock to everyone was that Jon was convicted of an attempted kiss. Yes, an attempted kiss. They call this sexual battery. There is also a claim that he touched her thigh. The prosecution also ridiculously claim that the mother and sister were in the apartment when Jon was assaulting some of these girls. Would any woman from any culture tolerate that? According to many of those in attendance, the prosecution clearly did not prove their case. Despite their duty to do so the prosecution showed no facts.

They failed, yet they won. They simply paraded these young women onto the stand with no facts. How they convinced a jury to vote guilty, despite the overwhelming evidence supporting innocence is beyond anyone’s comprehension. Every single one of their witnesses was impeached. Each one. Granted, some were more impeached than others, but still every one was proven beyond a reasonable doubt to be telling lies.

DDA Francis Young in her closing statement even told the jury to disregard those that were lying. She mentioned Holly G and Britny O by name. But the impact is still the same: "If you think that they are lying then disregard them." That statement pretty much seemed to seal the deal - all prosecution witnesses were caught lying. They all kept in touch with Anand Jon after their claims that they were assaulted. Some by phone, text message, email or a combination of any or all.

These girls also sent salacious emails, pictures, chats, etc. All of that seemed not to matter to the jurors in this case. There has been much community support for Anand Jon with many Indians showing up to court. Those that attended the verdict were shocked with disbelief. After the verdict(s) defense attorney Leonard Levine stated that there are "multiple grounds for appeals; this is not over by a long shot."