After hearing that a woman at Hofstra University who accused four men of gang-raping her this week had recanted, my immediate reaction was more or less the same as Gina's: "No doubt this will be used against future victims." That sad truth is just the surface.
We typically every rape story framed as two-sided: His (I didn't rape her) and hers (He raped me). She's a victim, he's a villain. Or she's a liar, he's completely innocent. To a large extent, I agree with to Amanda Hess:
Most of the time, we, armchair rape analysts, launch into these arguments before we have any actual idea whether a particular person has raped another person. In most cases, we will never know. What we do know, all the time, is that rape is a problem, and false rape accusations are a problem. The meaningless squabbles between the two camps tend to overlook the fact that people concerned about rape and people concerned about fake rape accusations are both fighting against the same thing: rape culture.
Rape culture does not just encourage men to proceed after she says "no." Rape culture does not simply teach men that a lack of physical resistance is an invitation. Rape culture does not only tell men to assert ownership over whichever female body they desire. Rape culture also tells women not to claim ownership over their own bodies. Rape culture also informs women that they should not desire sex. Rape culture also tells women that saying yes makes them bad women.
Absolutely, we can blame the fucked-up narrative around rape (and race -- all of the accused were men of color) in this country for the total media meltdown that ensues after something like the Hofstra incident occurs. Like Amanda, I want to get beyond the situation at hand and focus on the broader picture -- after all, none of us know what actually happened in that Hofstra dorm room. And we can agree that, like rape, rape accusations are a problem.
But I keep coming back to the fact that trying to compare the two is problematic. In our culture, the incentives for rape are strong. All sorts of social messaging says women are just bodies, not agents. That women are passive and men are powerful, especially when it comes to sex. Women are not very likely to report being raped -- or even acknowledge that "rape" is the term for what happened to them. The incentives for false rape accusations, on the other hand, are few and far between. Think about how we treat women who stand up in public and say that they were raped. They are vilified.
We should be asking why a woman is saying she was raped and then recanting. We should be looking at the campus culture and racial dynamics and history. We should be talking about what we can do about how rape is portrayed in the media. We should not just scream "LIAR!" and leave it at that.
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I was talking to a friend last night about this and he was trying to get me to declare that we need to prosecute this woman for bringing false charges and ruining these guys lives, and it was very difficult to try to explain to him what that would to to women who were genuinely raped and make it that much less likely that they would seek justice.
Sadly, I think we're going to see an increase in falsified allegations. The chickens are coming home to roost with Abstinence Only education: kids who had received that education back when it began are the ones in college and adulthood now. The women who have been taught that their own desires are wrong and dirty and if they have sex it makes them horrible broken sluts are trying to explore their own sexuality. I'm not at all surprised that someone would "cry rape" in order to convince themselves and others that they aren't a horrible broken slut.
I would like it if, prior to trial, accused rapists had the same rights regarding releasing their information as the victim. It just feels fair--I don't like trial by media.
If this weren't a case where the reasons for her recanting were so blatantly obvious then I could see where you are going with this. She was on tape actively participating when she claimed to have been forcibly taken to the dorm, tied up and held down and raped one by one. She said she claimed rape because her BOYFRIEND started asking her questions when she came to see him shortly after the *alleged* consensual group sex at Hofstra.
i'm not sure of race playing a part here since the lady, i believe, is black. (she has a senegalese last name).
anyway, one more reason to protect the identities of those accused of rape until a conviction. rape, like other crimes, have people that lie about its occurence. i don't see how the assertion of a 'rape culture' changes that. and i dont understand why anyone would stand in the way of her being prosecuted. the damage to these guys' lives is already immense. imagine them convicted. imagine the lives of others convicted already under similar circumstances
Woah, did they publish her name somewhere??
People say her name was published in NY Post. Once she is not a victim, but a suspect now.
She could ruin 4 lives and ended up ruining her life.
I'm curious about this "ruining the accused's life" meme. It gets thrown around a whole lot in dialog about rape, and I've always wondered if it actually meant anything at all.
So if a man is accused of rape (not convicted, just accused), his life is ruined? Forever? He can never get a job, or trust another woman, lose all of his friends, and never be trusted to tell the truth again? Really?
Because that sounds to me like what happens to rape victims, not accused rapists.
i think in this case at least one of these men *did* lose his job as soon as he was accused (or charged? either way, before he was actually tried and convicted). now that the accusation has been recanted, he has had his job reinstated.
Seriously? I'm surprised at this comment.
I know I wouldn't trust someone who had been accused of rape or sexual assault. I would assume they were guilty even if the woman retracted her story. I think most people, even non-feminists, think the same.
I don't think that way. Not all accusations are founded and some people do lie. Kind of unfair to still punish someone unless you have some kind proof indicating otherwise.
I'd point to this article as an example of some of the stuff that can happen. The man had been physically attacked resulting in him breaking his arm, received death threats, had stones thrown through his windows, and lost custody of his children.
Race absolutely played a part in this respect: men of color, particularly African American men, have been stereotyped for centuries as being oversexed, barely human rapists or potential rapists. When the accuser formulated her scheme to falsely accuse the young men, she did so with the knowledge that because she would be accusing men of color, she would be reinforcing the stereotype held by the police, by the prosecutor, by a judge and jury, by the media, and by an overwhelming number of people reading about it.
So if they had been white, she'd have told her boyfriend that she was cheating on him? I'll buy that the media latched onto this because the accused are black, but I'm not convinced she'd have 'fessed up and gone on her merry way if they'd been white.
> We should be asking why a woman is saying she was raped and then recanting
In this particular case this question can be very easy answered. She claimed that she was raped so that her boyfriend (and others) wouldn't think that she cheated him (with 5 men). She recanted her allegations because somebody recorded that she willfully participated in the intercourse.
Of course, this case will damage real victims of rape.
Oswid - you are right in that we should be asking why this woman recanted...but not for the reasons you state.
Has nobody here thought that these young men (or indeed their friends at college) may have put pressure (verbal or physical) on this woman to recant?! Perhaps they - or people they knew threatened her. You don't know. Neither do I...but to just assume that the sex was consensual and she just lied is very unfair.
And where does it state that she willingly partcipated in the intercourse? I do not see this in the articles. If she did say this she again, could have been being pressured or she may have been in shock. I just think it's very unfair to assume if you do not have all the facts.
Somebody videotaped the intercourse. It shows consensual sex. Officers interviewing accuser told her that they might have this video. She immidiately recanted. Oops?
How many minutes long was the video? How many minutes long was the entire rape? Is what is seen on the video just a mere portion? Then how can a judgment be made? Rape is such a threatening, demeaning, intimidating act (and imagine when there are 5 of them and 1 of you) that a woman might likely not scream or resist.
They were at a frat party. Alcohol, anyone? Sure, I'll walk with you to your dorm. You're so cute, yeah, yeah. Where are we? We're just going to have some fun. Okay.
And fun was had. But by whom? Certainly it was fun enough to want a souvenier of the event as, very luckily it turns out, one of the boys/men filmed it.
None of us were actually there so no one will ever know the details. Needless to say, if you conducted a poll, more men would say a gang bang in a bathroom stall is a 10 out of 10 than the majority of women who would put it much, much lower on the scale.
The sad fact is she did go with them that night, she did have sex with one or more of them. And she probably felt ashamed for what happened. So out comes the story about ropes and luring her, etc. Mistake on her part and bad for the credibilty of all women who may be raped.
Nevertheless, the guys had their fun and maybe next time they'll be careful about where and with whom they have sex.
"Where there's smoke, there's fire."
Yes - I concede that does make her side of the story less plausible.
However - that still doesn't mean that they couldn't have emotionally co-erced her from the outset.
She had also been dancing so diminished responsibility from alcohol may have meant that she was less able to consent...and again, the guys would know this.
Also it does she like a set-up of you consider that one of the suspects had stolen her phone...perhaps to lure her into the situation.
Whatever the story I just think it is very dangerous to always just say "Well, obviously she lied". You have to look at the circumstances around it. People's tendancy to do this is why so many victims are not believed.
Just as an aside to my last comment: if they did video tape it, then did she even know they had?
It could be that they had done this before: co-erced women into sex and videod it - certainly there have been cases of this. Looking at the articles in detail, there are just too many questions raised to say definitevly, that she was not raped.
Well I remember the story of a young white girl who had given oral sex to her young black friend and he was sent to an ADULT prison as a sex offender because when her parents caught her in the act she cried rape. When she turned 18 she told the truth thinking he may get out of prison but nope, he has to serve his youth in jail for having sex with someone who threw him under the bus. I think that's wrong. I think he was victimized by her inability to admit that yeah-she wanted to do this and yeah she knew her parents would be pissed. I also remember being really upset about the stripper who accused the duke lacrosse team of raping her and although they WERE racist douchebags they were not rapists. The women who lie make it harder to believe the women who tell the truth because if you believe her without evidence and send an innocent person to jail he HAS been victimized, having a penis doesn't mean he should be sent to prison. Doesn't mean he is guilty, doesn't mean he is worth less than people with vaginas. But then ther eis the problem of NOT believing the women who are telling the truth becaus eof the women who lied. Youlet a rapist go free to rape again. Neither situation is OK, both are equally reprehenisible and there should be more done to ensure that 1) a rape occured and 2) you have the right person. Because if the wrong person goes to jail even if a rape occured then a REAL rapist a REAL criminal is STILL out there, free ot rape again empowered withthe knowledge that his victim either will not be able to identify him or that the system will find someone to blame for his actions.
If you're talking about the case I think you're talking about, I think you got some of the facts wrong. This was a highly publicized case a while back, where a 17 year old boy, Genarlow Wilson, was video taped receiving oral sex from a 15 year old girl. The boy first had sex with a 17 year old girl, who had been drinking, and then received oral sex from the 15 year old. The 17 year old woke up confused and disoriented and claimed that she had been raped by the boy. The video was submitted as evidence, and he was acquitted of the rape, but then charged with aggravated child molestation for engaging in a non-vaginal sex act with the 15 year old. He spent 2 years out of a 10 year sentence in prison because of a badly worded law that had been put into place to protect kids from pedophiles.
Unless you're talking about another case that I am unaware of.
Do you recall the name of the young man in that case? It sounds like the one where they couldn't get a conviction in another incident that occurred between him and another girl at that same party, so they went after him for statutory rape with this second girl. I seem to remember there was more to the story than a blow job gone wrong.
In this present case, I'm still not convinced that the woman wasn't coerced in any way. When you're dealing with four guys at one time pressuring you to have sex, some women might just go along with it rather than risk physical injury. Although, she did also falsify details such as being tied up.
One thing that no one in the media brings up in these cases is that the system actually worked. A false allegation was made and discovered before the case even went to court. What about the countless real rapes that never get reported let alone go to trial, let alone result in a conviction (which usually results in a ridiculously short sentence anyway)?
I am a bit older than most here. I have two sons, one 16 and the other 24. I have tried to teach them about the risks associated with their sexuality. Of course there is the specter of SDCs. But there is also the risk of rape accusations. I have told them (especially my older one) repeatedly that "no" always means no. If a woman is drunk or even slightly drunk, then they should not try to be sexual with them, that they should turn and walk away. I know my lessons are unrealistic, but I worry so much about my sons.
They could be part of rape culture and that really frightens me. I am also frightened by the reality of false accusations. Despite what we might believe as women, there are incentives for women to cry rape when, in fact, there has been no rape. I am ashamed to admit that I tried that when I was younger. My college boyfriend had broken up with me and I was furious. How could do that to me? So, I reported to the campus police that I was raped, hoping he would be arrested so I could get even. I didn't get my story straight and it only took a few minutes worth of questioning for my sad story to fall apart.
I am so terribly ashamed of what I had done. If a woman did that to either of my sons, they might be thrown in jail, tried, convicted and sentenced. All on the word of a jilted girlfriend, as I had attempted to do so many years ago.
Lying about rape is awful. It is about the possibility of ruining a man completely. Lying about rape is about lessening the believability of real rape victims.
I am teaching my sons about this possibility and I hope so much that they are careful about their sexuality within the context of rape culture.
Raising sons has truly raised my consciousness about these types of issues.
I, too, was somewhat troubled by Amanda's piece. I think rape culture probably contributes to false allegations of rape - when women are taught that participating in sex is bad or dirty or shameful, it's not surprising that a woman who engages in consensual sex (particularly in a group situation like this) might lie about it later. This isn't meant to excuse the action, but to provide a context for it. However...false allegations are very rare, and it's way more common for actual rapes to be underreported. When the media plays up false rape allegations, or makes them seem to be just as bad as actual rape, they're just undermining the seriousness of the crime and giving incentives for future cases to be treated with even more doubt by the media and the legal system.
Are you talking about Genarlow Wilson? (Black high school boy from GA who went to jail for 10 years because he was videotaped receiving oral sex from an underaged White girl.) I'm from Atlanta, and his name still gets brought up every so often around here.
Truth is, I think the problem is not just rape culture (although it's an issue), but the general attitude towards sex in the U.S. We have this weird dynamic when it comes to (heterosexual*) sex: men want it all the time, women never want it, men have to coerce women into sex to get it, etc. etc. I think we not only need to look at the way rape is presented in pop culture, but the way consensual sex is presented as well.
*I'm not going to even talk about homosexual sex, because that's a big can of worms that could take days to discuss.
Just so you have some backround on where I'm coming from, I've spent the last 12 years working with and for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. That does not by any means make me an expert, but I do have some kind of perspective, and I have a few comments to share. First off, I am bothered by the notion that we have a diochotomy between "real victims" and woman who lie. Too often, we see "real victims" as only "good girls" who made "good choices" and were sexually assaulted anyway, and we discount the very real assaults of women who were drinking, doing drugs, or otherwise acting outside of the "good girl" box we'd like women to stay in... When we look at someone who recants, in my experiance, it has much more to do with the fact that the trauma they are subjected to by the criminal justice system, the courts, the media, their family, their sorority sisters, etc., the constant questioning of their story and the admonishments to "just move on" makes many many women decide that it is easier to recant and let people think they are liars then to push forward and have every aspect of themselves oput on display for public consumption. This is not to say that no one ever lies about being assaulted (though when they do, I think we do have to examine the ways that our culture certainly is complicit in that action), but it is to say that just becasue someone recants, doesn't mean that the assault didn't happen. The other thing I would briefly like to address is the race issue. I think it is naive of us to think that just because a victim and a perpetrator have the same color of skin, doesn't mean that race doesn't still play a role in the decision to report, and public perception of the case once it is reported. Unfortunately, racial bias exists both between and within races and cultures...
"I also remember being really upset about the stripper who accused the duke lacrosse team of raping her and although they WERE racist douchebags they were not rapists."
Actually, we do not know for sure that that woman was not raped, just that she was not raped by those particular men. She had semen from several men inside of her. She also had been abused younger in life, which affects the ways future attacks would impact her. She also was diagnosed with mental issues.
It's possible she was raped by some men in that frat house and was just confused about which ones -she may have been under the influence, etc. Bottom line is we just don't know.
Let me refresh you memory about LAX case as you obviously don't know or forgot the facts.
Every single LAX player (46 of them) voluntarily provided his DNA, and none of the DNA found inside of her didn't match any of them. So if she was raped (it didn't have to happen during the LAX party) it was by someone else. Perhaps her boyfriend raped her, as his DNA matched.
Frankly I'm not convinced this was entirely consensual even with the cell phone video. We don't know what went on before that was turned on, we don't know what was going through her head. Maybe she said "no" and they told her to shut up and she decided that there were 5 men in front of her and fighting might get her beat up or hurt worse in some way.
Perhaps she made up the tale of being tied up to make her claim more credible, more black and white. Less he said she said, since she perceived, wisely, that those types of claims are seen as more credible.
This is the Bernard Goetz defense. This is frightening. For those too young to know, Bernard Goetz was a NY subway rider who shot & nearly killed 4 black men in 1984 after they asked him for change. He said they were intimidating...and were going to mug him.
This idea that we can somehow charge people for crimes just because they're large, black men, or otherwise intimidating is flatly wrong. We can't simply accuse or convict people of rape simply because they look like the bogeyman of bedtime stories. Unless there is a specific threat this, "Blame the black bogeyman" is purely hate culture .
Bluebears argument would still stand even if she were referring to white men. This is not some "I saw five black men coming towards me so I accused them of rape."
We don't know what happened, maybe the woman (who I believe is black) only wanted to have sex with one of the men, but he then had four of his friends join in with out her consent. She may have been very intimidated being in a room with five men who are much larger than her, so she just went along with it thinking it would be easier than trying to fight them off.
And this is besides the point but aren't 4 of the 5 men Hispanic?
I'm a Hofstra student, and this whole incident has left the student body confused and pissed off. There are still news vans parked in the parking lot almost a week later. And of course everyone is formulating their own opinions based on heresay and rumors. When the story first broke meetings were held in residence halls to discuss what happened, counseling was made available, and one of my hour and a half lectures was devoted entirely to letting students talk about their reactions- all very good healing steps for the student body. Now that the story was recanted, nobody knows what to do or say about it other than posting outraged facebook status updates. The whole media frenzy is definitely unwelcome here, but I feel like I and everyone else who isn't involved has no place voicing an opinion either- why she said this happened and then recanted is the student's own business. I don't see how this situation benefits anyone involved, so my gut reaction is to think there's more to the story that isn't/can't be shared, and it's just not my place to speculate on the details. I wish this whole thing would go away- Hofstra is in general a great place to be, and the media frenzy is damaging to everyone.
I don't know what to say really. When talking about situations like this in theory, it's great to have opinions and courses of action you think would be best- but when whatever happened happened extremely close by... I just don't know what to think about it at all.
It's important to understand that women DO recant when the rape actually DID occur as well. When the rapist(s) have more social clout that the victim, the repurcussions around reporting the crime can feel worse than the crime itself. We rarely have any way of knowing for sure that a person who is recanting lied in the first place. As the OP stated, the only way to resolve this is to put an end to rape culture altogether.
my immediate reaction was more or less the same as Gina's: "No doubt this will be used against future victims."
I guess one's empathy immediately goes towards where one most closely identifies. As a male of color, my immediate reaction was sympathy for the young men whose names and images were plastered over the media in connection with the word "rapist" and a smoldering contempt for the liar that so thoughtlessly caused substantial damage to the people who she accused.
I want to get beyond the situation at hand and focus on the broader picture -- after all, none of us know what actually happened in that Hofstra dorm room.
I find this comment to be dismissive of the affects on the falsely accused people and of the affects on men of color. I am disappointed that the exposition on rape culture just gave a passing reference to the aspect of race. One of the most pernicious stereotypes of the rape culture is that all men of color are rapists or have the "rape mentality."
THIS.
The whole "let's look at the bigger picture here" glosses over such a huge component of this issue that it's downright nuts. The fact that these guys were African American played a huge role in every step of this case.
It seems callous to try to go macro scale before looking at the micro. This kind of stuff matters to folks who are troubled by the fact that they're perceived as sex-crazy beasts driven by lust, especially in the context of the legal system.
Phenicks, that is not what happened in the Georgia case if that is the case you are referring too. The girl never lied about being raped there was a tape of her doing the deed at a party and somehow it got to the DA, who then went after him for statutory rape.
Blitzgal, I ponder the same thing. The news will highlight a false rape allegation more than they will the "real" rapes. In my old neck of the woods they usually only did stories on rapes if there were serial patterned occurrences.
Will charges be filed against her for false accusations of rape? Normally I would never suggest this, but since it was actually proved with video evidence to have been consensual, shouldn't she be charged?
I think this is a lot more complicated than simply whether or not the accusation was false or not. Sexual assault is rarely clear cut and issues of consent are often muddled for both sides. Its common for survivors to doubt themselves because they may not have fought or explicitly said no either from fear or shock.
In this instance, one thing that I think is being neglected is the fact that five men were involved and that she now claims that she had consensual sex with all of them. But was it consensual just because she didn't say no? Why was a consensual sex act with that many people taking place in a bathroom? Five to one is an incredible power dynamic regardless of whether or not she was physically forced and I havent seen any mention of whether or not any of them were drinking.
Likewise, she supposedly reported the rape because she didnt want her boyfriend finding out she had 'cheated'. Rape culture is ripe with victim-blaming and is generally terrible to women who express their sexuality. So whether she was simply reacting to being considered a 'slut' or wasn't sure how to classify what happened and was afraid of being considered a slut on top of that, its a sign that are some very strong social forces at work here.
There is also little discussion as to what precipitated her recanting the allegations. Its not unusual for women who file reports, especially high-profile ones, to be harassed.
I don't pretend to know what happened, but I think that people are jumping to a lot of conclusions without asking many questions about the circumstances. Rape is one of the most under reported crimes in the US and the numbers of truly false accusations are minimal at best.
Charges being dropped doesnt make the issue clear cut.
I have strong feelings about this. One of my oldest friends had a former classmate of ours we hadn't seen in 15yrs, suddenly call his job (he was a professor) & anonymously accuse him of raping her. Moreover she pretended to be a student & did this by leaving voice mails & handwritten messages with the Dean, faculty chair, etc. It was sometime before he was able to figure out who it was (after listening to a voice mail), and then more time for the police to track her & arrest her. She was eventually prosecuted for harrassment, but he lost his job. The woman was mentally ill, but the university simply said, "why would she completely fabricate this & look you up after all these years if it wasn't true?" Just like the young woman who accused these innocent men, we may never know.
Thank God they had this captured on cell phone video or else they'd each be serving 20 to life.
Yea, most likely not 20 years to life. Conviction rates for sexual assaults are horribly low and the sentences are rarely that severe unless there are some extreme circumstances like a serial rapist.
I think it should be noted that while the woman may have been lying in the situation you're describing, a woman having a mental illness does not mean that her allegation of rape cannot be trusted. Many psychiatric problems have no impact on a person's ability to distinguish fact from fiction or on a person's honesty, and people with psychiatric problems that do affect those things are very vulnerable to exploitation. A person's allegation of rape should not be discounted because the person has a mental illness.
I have as hard a time connecting this to a rape culture, as I do connecting the Yale murder to a "workplace violence culture". So perhaps someone has some thoughts here... (I know the OP was trying but I can't say they made the argument clear to me)...Unfortunately I think that just as we will always have murderers, we will always have rapists.
One small way though that I perhaps could see it is this: Whenever we hear of some outlandish sex act, usually group sex, we (operating in Puritan mode) always rush to assume that no one would ever willingly consent to group sex, so they must've been raped. Well, in this case that's demonstrably (we have cell phone video) not true. In that famous '80s case of the I-Banker gang raped in Central Park, it turned out not to be the men that were prosecuted & sentenced. There was another similar case in Maryland. In each instance I think society said, "Oh, this had to be rape" without ever looking at the evidence. I think I would chalk this up to a Puritanical streak in our culture though, not so much a rape culture.
"Whenever we hear of some outlandish sex act, usually group sex, we (operating in Puritan mode) always rush to assume that no one would ever willingly consent to group sex, so they must've been raped."
That's great that you say that, but four men running a train on one woman while not touching each other is a lot different from five people all having sex with each other. As someone who has been on the receiving end of what you call simply "group sex" that was really assault, I hope you can consider the difference between one woman being fucked by four men, and one woman and four men all fucking each other. Big difference. Just a thought.
My concern is about how the authorities have represented this "hoax" (as some news sites have been calling it) or false accusation: there was no struggle, no screaming, no bruising, and the video "looked like a porn movie" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/17/hofstra-gang-rape-hoax-st_n_289774.html).
I've been waiting to hear how or in what ways she changed her story after authorities suggested there was a video of the incident. We know that rape can look like sex or look consensual, and that threatening women into having sex is still rape. Saying it "looked like a porn movie" has a horrible irony to it. Not all porn is based on women's subordination, but there are plenty of examples of women being forced into it not to notice the irony in that "porn movie" characterization.
With that aside, I've noticed in the media coverage of this story that how she recanted and whether she admitted to lying and why isn't at all central; instead, people are focusing on "no struggle, no screaming, no bruising" to *confirm* that rape did not occur. As many have already said, it's troubling that these perceptions can be relied on in the future when accusations are not false.
Some of the comments in this story are very troubling:
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/nassau/da-hofstra-accuser-lied-about-rape-until-video-was-raised-1.1456015
And finally, why would the accused rapists have asked their victim to come with them when the encounter ended, as she herself said they did?
That's easy. B/c the accused rapists didn't think it was rape. Many people believe myths about what is and isn't rape, and rapists are just as susceptible to these myths as anyone else. If an accused rapist knows the victim and didn't jump out of the bushes in a dark parking lot, they might think they had sex rather than rape. And why wouldn't you ask someone you had sex with to come someplace with you afterwards?
Victor Daly-Rivera, a Bronx attorney representing Kevin Taveras, 20, of Brentwood, one of the accused men, said he had viewed part of a short cell phone video of the Hofstra incident taken by a fifth man the woman claimed had raped her.
"Clearly, she wasn't forced. Clearly, she wasn't screaming," Daly-Rivera said of the video. "There were no ropes."
Another myth believer. Rape victims don't always scream. Sometimes they are too scared or shocked. They might not know that what is happening is rape, they might think they led the guy on.
The woman in this case may have lied about some details. That doesn't prove she consented to sex.
the lawyer referenced though facts, the ropes and screaming, because they were in her now discredited report
FrumiousB,
well, there's also the actual possibility of her lying.
"That doesn't prove she consented to sex."
How would it be even possible to *prove* consent? I mean, even if a woman enthusiastically participates and states on record "I consent to sex and I am not intoxicated at all" that doesn't logically imply that her consent was actually there. Likely maybe, but not necessary.
And then there's crazy academic approaches to this problem like this one by Zoe Petersen -
Conceptualizing the “Wantedness” of Women’s Consensual and Nonconsensual Sexual Experiences: Implications for How Women Label Their Experiences With Rape
http://www.sexscience.org/uploads/media/Peterson.pdf
- that allows even sex *wanted* by a woman to be non-consenual ex-post. Seriously. The deconstruction of people's ability to say what they want must end at some point.
In other words, even *enthusiastic participation" could be labeled as rape ex post if the woman in question decides so at some point.
But, well, being unable to see inside her mind people will have to *infer* consent from the absence of dissent to a large extent, just like we infer the guys consent from the fact that they participated.
"no means no" isn't a perfect standard, because "no" will *in reality* be contextualised. Not all "nos" are equal, just like not all 'yesses" are equal. Communication is difficult, explicitness is commendable, but, *in reality*, when it comes to sex, consent isn't usually agreed upon by committee meetings unless it's about royal procreation.
I believe there is such a thing as rape after the fact, in cases such as rape through fraud or deception, probably the most famous example in recent times being one man posing as his twin brother to have sex with the twin's girlfriend against her knowledge.
Maybe someday we'll be able to have these sorts of discussions without getting hung up in the tit for tat. I wish I knew the best way to go about it and to keep young boys from assimilating all of the awfulness of rape culture into their own identities. They get inundated with it at such a young age and then it's twice as hard to counteract it afterward.
She lied and she should be prosecuted. You don't get a pass on potentially destroying peoples lives. And I think scrounging around to make excuses for her is no different that rapists apologists saying she was asking for it.
Hey Thats my take on it. Many of the responses on here are troubling. reading some of the responses here it seems folks are wedded to the idea that all rape accusations are true and even a recantation and video evidence are mere annoyances to be ignored. And that the lives of the accused are irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.
A recantation does not equal a false rape accusation. There are a multitude of reasons why a rape victim would recant that do include lying - most likely, intimidation and harassment from other students. It is certainly possible, if not probable, that this student was, in fact, raped. In that case, the outcry over her "false rape accusation" is surely furthering her trauma.
Additionally, in reference to the racial dimension of the case, although clearly there is a long history of black men being written as rapists in the service of white supremacy, those accusations have never been in defense of black women. The trope of the black male rapist requires the protection of white female virtue. To claim that black women rape victims (or black women who accuse black men of rape) further racist tropes is, firstly, wrong and, secondly, further marginalizes black women's voices.
Wow. I hardly know where to start. There is so much turmoil in this entire ordeal. I guess I'll start with some of the attitudes I take exception to.
The idea that a rape accuser should some how represent other rape accusers is completely obscene and is evidence of Rape Culture itself. Every situation is unique and every person is different. If the public has a harder time believing rape accusers after a recanting, then it has nothing to do with the person who recanted and everything to do with the bias that our Rape Culture perpetuates that sexual victimization is less believable - especially when notions of gender are involved. More people than the ones in that room are guilty for these events. I will detail this more thoroughly later.
Furthermore even if an accuser recants it only means that they have recanted. It does not mean they necessarily lied, just because of the recant. If you're not a survivor you can't imagine what it's like to be raped. We could try to tell you but I doubt you'll really get it. Being raped can carry a significant amount of shame and fear.
If you have never accused someone publicly of rape you cannot imagine the despicable treatment that accusers often face.
We don't know, sitting here on the internet, what happened, even if there is a god damned video. As many have already said a video only documents the physical actions of the people there - it does not document whether she said maybe, whether she said no, or whether she said nothing. Consent is explicit verbal agreement. We can't even watch the video (and I hope no one would want to) so stop acting like you know anything about this event. We don't know what happened. And it's not up to us.
One of the major problems I have with this story is the typical misconceptions about rape and sexual assault. But it is hard to blame people for being ignorant when the government does nothing to educate our children about rape, consent, sexual assault, sexual terrorism, or any of the other pertinent but overlooked aspects of sexual violence never talked about from a feminist perspective in the largely corporate and male dominated media.
People don't have an accurate or adequate definition of rape, probably couldn't define consent, and are completely unaware of the terror rape victims endure or the mental stresses that can cause them to accuse and then recant.
If you weren't in that room you don't know what happened. And chances are if you aren't her, you don't know what happened.
Most rapes occur between people who know each other. Because people don't know what consent is or how to practice it, they often do not know definitively if they have been raped or if they have raped. Our patriarchal society has normalized sexual aggression (particularly male sexual aggression) to the point that people think a hard dick or a wet cunt, the absence of screaming or physical resistance, silence, or giving in to coercion are implicit or explicit signs of consent. They're not.
I find most people to be completely unaware of the fact that if you didn't want sex but were pressured into it by begging, by coercion, implicit or explicit threats, then you were raped.
The number of men and women who are unaware of being rapists is staggering and tragic and in large part the responsibility of our society, schools, government, and media for obfuscating the truth about rape, sexual assault, and consent.
I am a male victim of rape and my rapist-turned-stalker is perhaps not aware that he did anything wrong. But for a majority of my teen years, from 13 to 18, I was coerced, assaulted, physically and verbally abused, and raped. How he couldn't know it was rape escapes me. But most people don't want to accept that they have raped. Most people want to believe they are good people. To this day, as I'm in my mid twenties, I am terrified of what would happen if I ever confronted him. I know from other victims that most rapists that knew their victims refuse to believe that they violated someone's consent. They get defensive and feel betrayed and that is usually just the beginning of a lot more suffering to be endured by the victim.
My situation is complicated by what I know in my head to be undeserved shame firstly because it happened for so long and so often, but secondly because I am male - rational or not, I am terrified that I will be seen as less manly and masculinity (a social standard imposed on individuals by culture) muzzles me to an extent. I'm very embarrassed. I can only imagine what women must experience for similar gender role related reasons. I didn't even know I was raped until earlier this year. On some level I knew what was happening to me was wrong but I couldn't articulate it and the abuse made me feel like I deserved what happened to me. If I tried to do or say anything about it now I can only imagine the horrible things that I would have to deal with. Humiliation being at the top of the list.
It is time that we petition the federal government for a national standard for rape and consent education as a mandatory part of a child's education. It is time that we produce and distribute pamphlets everywhere detailing what consent is and what rape is. It is time that we make a stand against Rape Culture and make our demands heard by any means necessary.
Some pamphlets that already exist, explaining consent, rape, harassment and assault:
http://zinelibrary.info/search/node/rape
I am so torn over this story. I am disturbed that this will be used as further proof that rape victims cannot be trusted, but I am also concerned about the phenomenon of black men being assumed criminal and being falsely convicted. I don't think false rape claims are justifiable, but if one were to do it why wouldn't they claim it was by a stranger? I cannot understand how anyone can put an innocent person through that.
Although we will never know what really happened, it would do us well to remember that the consent issue often plays out very ambiguously in real sexual encounters. Most likely, the woman was not explicitly asked by even one of the men let alone all of them whether she wanted to have sexual intercourse. More likely, they initiated physical contact, and they assumed consent when she did not resist. Perhaps she consented to kissing, but did they make sure she wanted to go further? Probably not. In their minds, they did not do anything wrong because she did not resist. But, in her mind, things could have been quite different. Five men to one woman presents a huge power differential (I find pressure to have sex from one man can be very intense; I cannot imagine being pressured by 5 men at once). Perhaps she was interested in one guy but she was scared to say no when the others became involved. Maybe she said no timidly and they persisted until she submitted. Maybe she wanted only to make out, but once she did that she felt like she had to go all the way because they wanted to.
In other words, it is entirely possible that the men's actions contributed to an atmosphere that made the woman feel unable to resist, but that the men still earnestly believed she was willing to have sex; and that the woman did not want to or felt conflicted about having sex but went along with it anyway for circumstantial reasons.
In my experience, consensual issues in sexual interactions are almost never explicitly outlined. Men are usually aggressive and it is up to females to delineate the boundaries. But because women receive a lot of conflicted and often negative messages about sex, they may feel uncomfortable setting those boundaries, saying yes to sex (i.e. consequently saying no when she wants to say yes), or declining sex once the man is aroused. Personally, I have had problems feeling like I had a right to say no once I started to get physical with a man, and I am sure there are other women who feel the same way.
Until we are at a place where men look for more than lack of resistance to signify consent and women can confidently say yes or no to sex, then we will keep having these ambiguous situations where one party earnestly believes rape occurred and the other party honestly perceives the accused as innocent.
Does any woman really want to have sex with five guys she doesn't know? That's what makes me think it might not have been consensual.
I really want to know if this woman knew she was being recorded on a cell phone. Did she give consent for that? If she didn't, isn't that in itself a crime? Those boys recorded her and showed it to other people. Isn't that criminal behavior anyways? Rape or no rape, that's a crime! How come no one is asking about that?