Response to George Will on college sexual assault

[rindan***]

By now you've either heard about or read George Will's controversial column on the issue of sexual assault on college campuses. Will's take is that the numbers are "preposterous" and using "simple arithmetic" he can prove the "supposed campus epidemic of rape" just ain't so. Worse, Will believes that progressivism, the Obama administration, a college hook-up culture and shady math are turning survivors of sexual assault into a "coveted status that confers privilege." He goes on to claim that efforts to address the issue on campuses is "making everyone hypersensitive, even delusional, about victimizations."

I'd no more want to have a conversation with George Will about sexual assault on college campuses than I wish to discuss racism with Donald Sterling. Both men are shockingly out of touch with reality.

1. George Will argues that "Washington" and "progressivism" are to blame for creating a "supposed" epidemic of campus rape.

Wrong. Colleges prefer to sweep sexual assault cases under the rug, but students have brought the issue to light. In 2011, 16 Yale students and alumni filed a Title IX sexual assault complaint against the university. Other similar lawsuits emerged across the nation. As of this moment, there are 55 universities and colleges under investigation by the federal government.

When Dartmouth (my alma mater) was confronted with the problem, the university experienced an astounding 14% drop in college applications. Unlike George Will, the president of Dartmouth College, Philip Hanlon, hit it head on:

"From sexual assaults on campus ... to a culture where dangerous drinking has become the rule and not the exception ... to a general disregard for human dignity as exemplified by hazing, parties with racist and sexist undertones, disgusting and sometimes threatening insults hurled on the Internet ... to a social scene that is too often at odds with the practices of inclusion that students are right to expect on a college campus in 2014. The actions I have detailed are antithetical to everything that we stand for and hope for our students to be. There is a grave disconnect between our culture in the classroom and the behaviors outside of it

 

[Zankou]

George Will wrote that getting raped is a privileged and coveted status? Hmm, sounds controversial.

Fake controversial based on fake quotes, I mean.

 

[rindan***]

The conservative titan wrote about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. 'sexual assault,'" in a piece on Friday. He put this trend down to increased political correctness on college campuses, which, he said, was proving that when universities "make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/06/09/george-will-sexual-assault-colleges_n_5473357.html

 

[Jukai]

George Will makes a few good points (numbers are likely overblown) but like many addressing this subject, those few good points are sandwiched around fucking skeezy anti-women rhetoric.

 

[Based and White Pilled]

Well your first point is completely nonsensical. Colleges trying to cover up sexual assault cases in no way refutes the claim that progressive movements and people involved in the federal government are giving this issue a lot of attention comparatively to other issues that affect similarly small numbers of people.

The real problem with the explosion of college rape claims is this nonsense that it is illegal to have sex with someone who willfully got drunk. Obviously, if a girl is drugged or somehow forced to drink, then that is a crime in itself and intercourse should be illegal, but those cases are far less common. Usually a girl gets hammered by her own choice, bangs guy, then decides she regrets it for any number of reasons ranging from her having a boyfriend to the guy being a jerk.

A girl once accused one of my roommates of taking advantage of her when she was drunk. He was, in fact, barely sober enough to function at the time. When her friends abandoned her because we told her we didn't want lying bitches at our house, she recanted and apologized. Any legal system based on a principle where whoever tattles first wins, should probably be revised.

 

[Jukai]

The real problem with the explosion of college rape claims is this nonsense that it is illegal to have sex with someone who willfully got drunk. Obviously, if a girl is drugged or somehow forced to drink, then that is a crime in itself and intercourse should be illegal, but those cases are far less common. Usually a girl gets hammered by her own choice, bangs guy, then decides she regrets it for any number of reasons ranging from her having a boyfriend to the guy being a jerk.

I keep hearing this in these threads. Do you have a source that false claims of rape are higher than actual claims of rape?

 

[MMAgirlie]

While I think he was crass in the way he brought it up, his wording was poor, and he presented it far too broadly and should have made it *dead* clear that there is nothing "coveted" about being a real rape victim, his fundamental point will prove true more often than you'd think.

Let's consider a number of things. First if we consider that we are almost brainwashed by our culture to view the woman as the victim and men as pre-disposed to violence and sexual misconduct - see, Duluth model, media articles that refer to accusers as "survivors" prior to proof, or just look at something like this:

http://gawker.com/viral-facebook-post-alleges-man-is-a-wanted-rapist-but-509724902

A woman accuses a man of rape - of children, but still of rape - in a facebook status update. No evidence, no source, just her word - and totally untrue. He is summarily accosted on the streets, ejected from parks, accosted by the cops, and so on and so forth. For her - prior to it coming out false - nothing but sympathy, and obvious support insofar as the person she didn't like is treated like a criminal he is not. For her? Immediate coveted, protected status based totally on her word. For him? Treated like a criminal. All based on someone's false word.

Now, forward to universities. With recent actions taken by the White House, universities are encouraged to punish people accused of rape with a *far* lower standard of evidence and due process than the actual legal system:

http://www.cotwa.info/2014/06/at-university-of-oregon-university.html

Now, if you pair that with a strong push for the favouritism of the accuser - if they are female - and you've got an ugly situation. What happens? Shit like these cases:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324600704578405280211043510
http://chronicle.com/article/Former-Student-Sues-Brown-U/65044/
http://news.mensactivism.org/node/24246

These are far from isolated. People are making false rape accusations - sometimes as much as six months after the event occurred, far past the point where any conclusive evidence could be gathered, and they are being taken as seriously as the woman on facebook in the first link I posted. Young men are having their lives ruined and women are being treated as "survivors" who haven't survived anything more than a night of sex they regretted after the fact.

Why do we call them survivors? Because rape is horrible - though, I still think "victim" is a better term myself. Legitimate rape victims really do need the support and comfort offered to them. The problem is, when we start giving that support and comfort out to people based on evidence that is, at best, extremely thin, with little to no consequence if it actually ends up being totally false, we create a situation in which the status of "rape survivor" could be sought out by people who don't deserve it much like a Munchausen patient seeks out the attention and affections of doctors. The problem? There is some poor bastard whose life is being ruined on the other end. Much like Munchausens patients treat the attention and sympathy of doctors and nurses as a "coveted status" to be sought after, you can't honestly expect that a similar thing won't happen with rape on campuses. Heck, it's already happening. With little consequence for a false rape accusation on campus, an immediate leaning towards being treated as the poor helpless victim of the awful sex crazed man and all of the support that goes with it, for some sick people out there, being "raped" really can be a coveted status.

Is this an epidemic? Don't think so. Is it a real problem? Yes - as is real rape. We shouldn't make one our sole focus while completely ignoring the other and demonizing those who even mention it - event tactlessly, like Will did.

What Will did wrong - if it was in fact a mistake, and he wasn't just an ass - was make it out to be black and white sexual assault victim as a coveted status. For a real date raped or forcibly raped individual, the sympathy and attention they get is an attempt at compensation for something really quite horrible. If someone was really raped, it is NOT a coveted status. For some underhanded, vindictive girls though? It's an easy way to get back at a man and have everyone say "you go girl - you're so strong!" and suddenly galvanize around you in support. For false accusers, "rape survivor" is an easy to attain status that is relatively low risk that is *loaded* with perks and gives them tremendous power over a young man. Yes, it can be a coveted status - but Will makes it sound like it universally is, which is very far from the truth.

And last - false rape? 2%? Think twice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

It may be Wikipedia, but look down to the links of studies done ranging from 1.5% to 90%. The 2% statistic is taken from an unsupported source in the 70's an the feminist community never thought to update their convenient statistic to show that it's at best much more contested than they make it out to be.

 

[Lord_Impaler]

I keep hearing this in these threads. Do you have a source that false claims of rape are higher than actual claims of rape?

They're not false claims....that's the point, isn't it?

He's saying it's outrageous that if two drunk people willingly have sex, and one reports that they were raped, it's actually considered rape.

 

[Based and White Pilled]

I keep hearing this in these threads. Do you have a source that false claims of rape are higher than actual claims of rape?

Per the legal system it isn't a false claim of rape if someone is too drunk to give consent. The law says that, that is really rape. The issue is that, that law is stupid and is very difficult to monitor accurately. Do you really doubt that most who claim to have been too intoxicated to give consent drank by their own free will, or are you just an obnoxious, argumentative moron?

 

[MMAgirlie]

I keep hearing this in these threads. Do you have a source that false claims of rape are higher than actual claims of rape?

Whoaaa... Who is saying that false rape claims are *higher* than rape claims now? The idea that only 2% are false is wildly outdated to the point where it's essentially a false statistic, but, I think you'd have to be crazy to say "more rape claims are false than true."

I only link to Wiki because it has a quick breakdown of over 20 studies on it, but take a look, and feel free to delve into the studies themselves if you want to get more in depth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

One of those studies - just one of those twenty - is the one that says "only 2% of rape claims is false." It's from the 70's. There is no information on the methodology to be found. It is from one police rape unit in New York. Despite that, that single study is the one that dominates the media as the holy grail of rape statistics. Why is that?

I'm not suggesting false rapes are freaky high but I seriously have to wonder - with all of that statistical range, is it really as low as 2%?

 

[Based and White Pilled]

While I think he was crass in the way he brought it up, his wording was poor, and he presented it far too broadly and should have made it *dead* clear that there is nothing "coveted" about being a real rape victim, his fundamental point will prove true more often than you'd think.

Let's consider a number of things. First if we consider that we are almost brainwashed by our culture to view the woman as the victim and men as pre-disposed to violence and sexual misconduct - see, Duluth model, media articles that refer to accusers as "survivors" prior to proof, or just look at something like this:

http://gawker.com/viral-facebook-post-alleges-man-is-a-wanted-rapist-but-509724902

A woman accuses a man of rape - of children, but still of rape - in a facebook status update. No evidence, no source, just her word - and totally untrue. He is summarily accosted on the streets, ejected from parks, accosted by the cops, and so on and so forth. For her - prior to it coming out false - nothing but sympathy, and obvious support insofar as the person she didn't like is treated like a criminal he is not. For her? Immediate coveted, protected status based totally on her word. For him? Treated like a criminal. All based on someone's false word.

Now, forward to universities. With recent actions taken by the White House, universities are encouraged to punish people accused of rape with a *far* lower standard of evidence and due process than the actual legal system:

http://www.cotwa.info/2014/06/at-university-of-oregon-university.html

Now, if you pair that with a strong push for the favouritism of the accuser - if they are female - and you've got an ugly situation. What happens? Shit like these cases:

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887324600704578405280211043510
http://chronicle.com/article/Former-Student-Sues-Brown-U/65044/
http://news.mensactivism.org/node/24246

These are far from isolated. People are making false rape accusations - sometimes as much as six months after the event occurred, far past the point where any conclusive evidence could be gathered, and they are being taken as seriously as the woman on facebook in the first link I posted. Young men are having their lives ruined and women are being treated as "survivors" who haven't survived anything more than a night of sex they regretted after the fact.

Why do we call them survivors? Because rape is horrible - though, I still think "victim" is a better term myself. Legitimate rape victims really do need the support and comfort offered to them. The problem is, when we start giving that support and comfort out to people based on evidence that is, at best, extremely thin, with little to no consequence if it actually ends up being totally false, we create a situation in which the status of "rape survivor" could be sought out by people who don't deserve it much like a Munchausen patient seeks out the attention and affections of doctors. The problem? There is some poor bastard whose life is being ruined on the other end. Much like Munchausens patients treat the attention and sympathy of doctors and nurses as a "coveted status" to be sought after, you can't honestly expect that a similar thing won't happen with rape on campuses. Heck, it's already happening. With little consequence for a false rape accusation on campus, an immediate leaning towards being treated as the poor helpless victim of the awful sex crazed man and all of the support that goes with it, for some sick people out there, being "raped" really can be a coveted status.

Is this an epidemic? Don't think so. Is it a real problem? Yes - as is real rape. We shouldn't make one our sole focus while completely ignoring the other and demonizing those who even mention it - event tactlessly, like Will did.

What Will did wrong - if it was in fact a mistake, and he wasn't just an ass - was make it out to be black and white sexual assault victim as a coveted status. For a real date raped or forcibly raped individual, the sympathy and attention they get is an attempt at compensation for something really quite horrible. If someone was really raped, it is NOT a coveted status. For some underhanded, vindictive girls though? It's an easy way to get back at a man and have everyone say "you go girl - you're so strong!" and suddenly galvanize around you in support. For false accusers, "rape survivor" is an easy to attain status that is relatively low risk that is *loaded* with perks and gives them tremendous power over a young man. Yes, it can be a coveted status - but Will makes it sound like it universally is, which is very far from the truth.

And last - false rape? 2%? Think twice.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

It may be Wikipedia, but look down to the links of studies done ranging from 1.5% to 90%. The 2% statistic is taken from an unsupported source in the 70's an the feminist community never thought to update their convenient statistic to show that it's at best much more contested than they make it out to be.

Good post. I didn't follow your links, so idk if one of them mentioned this, but another great example of the guilty until proven innocent attitude toward sexual assault is the duke lacrosse team. They were crucified by the media and abandoned by their university. They were found to be innocent, but there was really nothing that could be done to fix the damage to their names.

 

[Hadron]

Per the legal system it isn't a false claim of rape if someone is too drunk to give consent. The law says that, that is really rape. The issue is that, that law is stupid and is very difficult to monitor accurately. Do you really doubt that most who claim to have been too intoxicated to give consent drank by their own free will, or are you just an obnoxious, argumentative moron?

Most do drink by their own free will. Did you ever go to college? Women get wasted, beg you for it, then if you give it to them it is rape.



And all these silly instances of women make bad choices and wanting to blame others for it only hurt women who really were raped. Everyone cries about "victim blaming" when a girl says she was raped, and people respond that she probably got drunk and was asking for it. The fact of the matter is, is that a lot of women who cry rape really did get drunk, and really were begging for sex. And now all the women who were violently raped against their will get put into the same category as women who just made bad choices.

 

[bowened]

Apparently this 72 year old man is an expert on college girls and hook-up culture.

 

[Based and White Pilled]

Most do drink by their own free will. Did you ever go to college? Women get wasted, beg you for it, then if you give it to them it is rape.



And all these silly instances of women make bad choices and wanting to blame others for it only hurt women who really were raped. Everyone cries about "victim blaming" when a girl says she was raped, and people respond that she probably got drunk and was asking for it. The fact of the matter is, is that a lot of women who cry rape really did get drunk, and really were begging for sex. And now all the women who were violently raped against their will get put into the same category as women who just made bad choices.

Yes, I know. That is the point I was making.

 

[Hadron]

Yes, I know. That is the point I was making.

My bad. I totally skipped that "doubt the" in your last sentence and read "do you really claim". Completely changed the meaning.

 

[Cold Front]

The conservative titan wrote about "the supposed campus epidemic of rape, a.k.a. 'sexual assault,'" in a piece on Friday. He put this trend down to increased political correctness on college campuses, which, he said, was proving that when universities "make victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges, victims proliferate."

Really hard to fathom that somebody would be calling getting raped a privilege or a coveted status

It's really hard to believe you went to Dartmouth and still don't know how to accurately quote someone.

Will says victimhood, not being raped, is the coveted status. One can acquire the first condition without enduring the second.

Here is the key number from Will's column:

The administration

 

[rindan***]

Genuine rape victims already have the law and society on their side

considering that rape charge has some of the lowest conviction rate statistically, and that's when prosecutors feel confident enough to bring it to court, I would say it's the exact opposite

but don't let that stop you from parroting your narrative

 

[rindan***]

Let's consider a number of things. First if we consider that we are almost brainwashed by our culture to view the woman as the victim and men as pre-disposed to violence and sexual misconduct

If men would stop raping women and their fellow men then perhaps it wouldn't be such a big deal? I am not familiar with any period of history or any area of the world that has had a problem with sexual assault where women were the proponents of the issue. Are we supposed to ignore reality so that we do not hurt anybody's feelings?

 

[rindan***]

Usually a girl gets hammered by her own choice, bangs guy, then decides she regrets it for any number of reasons

You went to Lloyd Irvin academy of life didn't you?

 

[Gandhi]

By the frequency of these types of threads I would think that false rape accusations are a much bigger problem than actual rape. That or maybe we still have some work to do on attitudes.