The CNN anchor’s latest crime against decency:
LEMON: Can I ask you this, because — and please, I don’t mean to be crude, OK?
TARSHIS: Yeah.
LEMON: Because I know some of you — and you said this last night, that he — you lied to him and said “I have an infection, and if you rape me, or if you do — if you have intercourse with me, then you will probably get it and give it to your wife.”
TARSHIS: Right.
LEMON: And you said he made you perform oral sex.
TARSHIS: Right.
LEMON: You — you know, there are ways not to perform oral sex if you didn’t want to do it.
That sound you hear is millions of gay men mentally erasing “Get a blowjob from Don Lemon” off their bucket list.
In all seriousness, if you are wondering why many women do not come forward about their rapes (and in this day and age, you might want to wonder what the fuck is wrong with you, as there is ample evidence as to why women DON’T come forward), here’s another data point. Because if you do come forward and relive the horror and humiliation and everything that goes with having been raped, some asshole on national television might actually ask you “Why didn’t you bite his dick?” Let’s also note that these claims by women about Cosby have been around for a long time, but just now people are talking about it. Because a MAN brought it to the forefront, and as part of a comedy routine. Think about how messed up that is.
Why does Don Lemon have a job today, CNN?
Belafon
I thought the World According to Garp was a great book, but it was a book, and in the book, it was an accident.
GregB
Couldn’t they just hold an aspirin between their teeth?
geg6
Well, it’s the same reason, I’m guessing, that Sully is whining about the “certain type of feminists” who just need to shut up, quit making white men feel bad about themselves for being who they are and realize that women are actually doing massively better than men by any possible yardstick. He thinks there is a crisis among (white) men because of all the wimmenz stealing their sports, jobs/careers, bars and universities.
CONGRATULATIONS!
CNN has been giving Fox a run for the title of “world’s shittiest propaganda outlet” for a couple of years now, and they’re really making a concerted effort to win this thing.
Citizen_X
Well, the Teahdis are always screaming about this, that, and the other thing getting shoved down their throats. Has anyone suggested this tactic to them?
(And yes, “not enough teeth left” might be a good explanation as to why not.)
sophronia
Gosh, I wonder how someone who is cruel and unstable enough to sexually assault a woman would react if she bit him on the dick? Surely he would withdraw, apologize profusely, and never do it again! Certainly he would not become angry and beat her to a bloody pulp!
Honestly, I sometimes think that CNN’s actual goal is to broadcast every monumentally stupid idea that has ever entered a human brain and pretend that it’s worthy of serious debate.
beth
@geg6: Apparently Sully’s coined a new phrase – “femi-lefts” which he thinks is quite clever. (At least I think he’s coined it, I haven’t seen it used anywhere else.) Isn’t there a point where a somewhat intelligent person would sit back and wonder why their writing is starting to sound exactly like Rush Limbaugh and be concerned about that?
Felonius Monk
Unfortunately, Don Lemon has tremendous competition as he vies for the title of “Stupidest Man on TeeVee.”
ranchandsyrup
@Belafon: Shawshank Redemption has the threat of “I’ll bite it off” as well. Also, fiction.
Mike in dc
@Felonius Monk: Gonna need a 64 person tournament for that one.
SatanicPanic
CNN is trying to normalize willful stupidity
SiubhanDuinne
@Felonius Monk:
Wasn’t he also the one who speculated on air, in all seriousness, that a black hole might have swallowed MH370?
Amir Khalid
@Belafon:
An accident that takes place during consensual sex, if I remember right.
Gin & Tonic
Isn’t this the same Don Lemon who entertained on the air the theory that MH370 was abducted by aliens or something?
Suzanne
Taking victim-blaming to staggering new heights. It wasn’t rape if I said no, it wasn’t rape if I was drunk, it wasn’t rape if I was wearing sexy clothes or outside after dark. Nope, it’s not rape until I bite someone’s cock off.
Because that isn’t an upsetting or disgusting option in the slightest.
Amir Khalid
@SiubhanDuinne:
@Gin & Tonic:
Lemon could say that, since not even the merest scrap of MH370 has been recovered, his aeroplane-eating mini black hole theory hasn’t actually been proven wrong.
Tonybrown74
Not that I watched CNN that much in the last 10+ years, but doesn’t it seem that Don Lemon has actually become much dumber ever since he came out of the closet?
I just don’t recall him being this … simple before then.
Sherparick
Well, that is one way to win the Internets. Between Uber, Gamergate, George Will, Time Magazine banishing the word “feminist,” and now this one would think that being an misogynist would be the accepted norm.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Suzanne: More to the point, it’s a lethal one. Getting shot in the head in reprisal might be the best possible outcome to such an action.
NotMax
Lemon.
’nuff said.
RareSanity
I have no idea what audience CNN is targeting with their programming over the past couple of years, because it is beyond awful.
The funny thing is according to the ratings, neither does CNN apparently. They just keep going farther and farther in the same direction (whatever it is), and so do their ratings.
Say what you will about either FOX or MSNBC, at least they both have a cohesive “theme” with their networks. CNN is just an out of control dumpster fire.
MattF
@Amir Khalid: And what about the danger of dick-eating mini-black holes? Stupid white men are threatened, everywhere they look.
samiam
Your are embarassing yourself this nontellectual shtick Cole. Stick to posting Griftwald articles and slipping the the fact you think Rand Paul’s progressive trolling amounts to good ideas.
Tractarian
What? Why would I want to sink my teeth into a lemon?
Elmo
The absolute howling void of empathy in some men when it comes to the lived experience of women is horrifying. They literally cannot imagine being physically vulnerable, and the choices and tradeoffs that women make because of that physical vulnerability just don’t exist.
Karen in GA
Because we’re talking about the stupid bastard, that’s why.
The fact that we’re saying “what a stupid bastard” is irrelevant.
It’s not about news, it’s not about intelligence, and it’s sure as hell not about showing a rape victim any kind of courtesy or sensitivity. It’s about getting viewers, and clicks on their website. And that’s it.
Fuck these people.
Tractarian
If Bill Cosby was white, people wouldn’t be paying any attention to these allegations.
If Don Lemon was straight and white, he would have his own wildly popular daily radio show.
If Bill Cosby was gay, a lot of other gay men would be accusing him of assault.
If Glenn Greenwald was black and straight, he would be elected to Congress.
I got nothin.
Gin & Tonic
@RareSanity: Say what you will about either FOX or MSNBC, at least they both have a cohesive “theme”
What theme unites Joe Scarborough, Andrea Mitchell and Rachel Maddow?
FlipYrWhig
@MattF: Who among us doesn’t worry about the possibility that something might make the tube-like objects on which we rely suddenly disappear into incomprehensible apertures. Airplanes into black holes, pen1ses into angry mouths, it’s a whole complex.
Samuel Knight
It used to be with weekly news magazines that Time intentionally lied and Newsweek just seemed to sloppy to care what they wrote. Now its FOX lying and CNN being to sloppy to care. Lemon , Blitzer, Crowley – what a line up of people to listen to – IF you’re really determined not to have a clue about a particular issue.
And NO MSNBC is not a liberal network – Morning Joe was GOP and Matthews, jeez how well does he fit into the clueless old white guys meem, with Hannity, O”Reilly and others?
kwAwk
I know I’m going to get yelled at for saying this, but why isn’t this a valid question.
If the woman was clear headed enough to make up a story about having a disease, and if the assault wasn’t a violent attack or with imminent threats of violence, why didn’t she resist physically?
I’m not saying that there isn’t a good answer to this question on behalf of the victim, but only that I’m not sure that it’s a question that can’t be asked.
RareSanity
@Gin & Tonic:
The tie is not between particular individuals on the network…the relationship is with the “feel” of the network as a whole.
The theme of it being the more reasonable, thoughtful, and diverse alternative to Fox News.
beth
@kwAwk: He may have been physically bigger than the woman and she was frightened of escalating it to a physical level. At some point she may have thought giving a blow job was better than getting her jaw broken. It’s really hard to put yourself into that situation.
Villago Delenda Est
Don Lemon is a fucktard.
But you knew that, and I’m being redundant.
AGAIN.
The Thin Black Duke
@kwAwk: That’s a stupid question, man. Sorry.
mouse tolliver
Don Lemon is the ultimate example of I Got Mine, Fuck You. Remember he came out as a sex abuse victim a few years ago, but he has no empathy for other abuse victims. He also supports stop and frisk. But when he was wrongly accused of shoplifting he sued Tower Records for racial profiling.
Villago Delenda Est
@Samuel Knight: MSNBC is what passes for “liberal” in a media environment that runs from ‘status quo…yay!’ to ‘I want my country back…the way it was before the Union Armies crushed the valiant defenders of freedumb 149 years ago’.
Villago Delenda Est
@The Thin Black Duke: He’s known for stupid questions, and comments in general.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Let’s say that another guy wants you to hand over your wallet. The guy is 12 inches taller than you and outweighs you by 50+ pounds. Do you hand over your wallet, or do you physically resist, even though you know that he will easily be able to overpower you, probably injure you, and you’ll still lose your wallet?
IOW, it’s a stupid question and you should be embarrassed that you even asked it.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@kwAwk: Obviously it’s a question that can be asked. It was asked, after all. It’s just not a question that should be asked, because it implies that the victim is culpable for the outcome of the assault.
Villago Delenda Est
@Gin & Tonic: They’re all on the MSNBC payroll?
CarolDuhart2
@kwAwk: Because she may actually want to get home in one piece. Imagine being in a hotel room at night with someone you trusted suddenly turning on you like this, and your purse may be across the room. You may not have enough to get home. You may not care about it, but you have to at least get out of there to go home. Buying time is probably the safest thing you can do until you can get out of there.
Also many of the attacked could be people (I haven’t been following this closely) who are in the business and need for him not to retaliate against them professionally. And they know if they go to court, they will suffer both professionally and not even get a conviction-especially at that time.
kwAwk
@beth:
We live in a society where men are expected to be the sexual agressors. We can argue about whether we should or not, but the truth is men are expected to be on the offensive in sexual situations. You know, first base, then second base…etc.
I guess the answer I would be looking for would be, I stood up pushed him away and said NO! and then he forced me down.
Giving a man a blowjob because you’re too afraid to say no isn’t rape unfortunately unless the man has explicitly given you a reason to be afraid.
Villago Delenda Est
@Karen in GA:
With a rusty chainsaw, certainly not someone’s dick.
Have some empathy for the dick.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk: You sure have a purdy mouth.
elm
@kwAwk: So the fact that he drugged and raped her before and had just drugged her this time isn’t a “reason to be afraid”.
FlipYrWhig
@kwAwk: SMH
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne: You left out “it wasn’t rape if I were a woman of color, or poor, or uppity, or…”
Well, you get the general idea.
It’s a good thing this “civilization” is going to be annihilated in about 30 years.
cmm
What’s the over/under on Don Lemon being Fox’s first black gay male host within 5 years?
beth
@kwAwk: And drugging and undressing a semi-conscious woman is exactly what base?
CarolDuhart2
@kwAwk: For a woman who definitely doesn’t know a man well, here’s what you don’t know:
1)Would refusal lead to escalation? He’s bigger, he’s stonger, and you don’t know if he has weapons or not and would use them.
2) The entire story may not be known. There may be threats, but it’s your word against his as to whether or not he said them.
And in this situation, drugged,which means your reflexes are slow at best, you may not know where you are, whatever.
The point is no one should be taken advantage of like this-no one, ever. Cosby is as bad as any serial rapist who drags people in the bushes, and if he were anyone else, would already be doing some hard time-and needs to.
Suzanne
@kwAwk: BECAUSE SHE SHOULDN’T HAVE TO ENGAGE IN VIOLENCE IF SHE DOESN’T WANT TO.
For fuck’s sake.
Even if a woman doesn’t mind getting in a physical battle, there’s the incredibly likely risk of getting the fuck beaten out of oneself, AR BEST. Disfigurement. Pain. Disease transmission. Death.
Sexism is so potent as to be nearly corporeal.
Just Some Fuckhead
Easy for Don Lemon to say. He can bring a man to climax by batting his gorgeous eyes.
Villago Delenda Est
@Felonius Monk: The list is old style Manhattan phone book size, at present…and only getting bigger.
FlipYrWhig
@beth: kwAwk thinks that’s covered under those rules about how if a fielder touches the ball with his mask the runner gets to advance 3 bases automatically.
Villago Delenda Est
@cmm: All depends on the electoral ambitions of Ben Carson and/or Herman Cain.
scav
sounds like kwackkwack has some repressed suspiscions about the persuasiveness of his dating techniques and personal baseline attractiveness. kwacker’s fairly deep along the scale of “that particular no really means yes and it’s not real rapey rape unless actual active violence that leaves marks of a certain severity have been documented” continuum. But it’s not him responsible for the violence, it’s society’s expectations of masculinity that force him into it! poor poor brave opressed masculine masculinity.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sherparick:
They’re working on it, man. Give them some more time, they’re making progress on that.
Villago Delenda Est
@scav: You know who I blame for the fact I can’t get laid? Society!
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Uh, you may need to check your local laws on that, dude. You may not think it’s rape, but the law disagrees with you.
Emma
@Suzanne: I have been trying hard to stay out of this because I’m still shaking with rage at the very idea that someone would say “Giving a man a blowjob because you’re too afraid to say no isn’t rape unfortunately unless the man has explicitly given you a reason to be afraid.” Thank you for responding.
I worry for his daughters if one of them ever tells him she’s been raped and isn’t in the hospital or covered in bruises.
Tenar Darell
@geg6: Based on his self-quoting from The New Republic, he’s been doing “oh, noes, crisis in manhood-ville” for a very long time. I broke a promise to myself yesterday to not read that whiner at all. I’m really trying to break my perverse addiction to hate-reading him at this point.
CONGRATULATIONS!
That’s a kwAwk of shit, dude.
Besides, the law explicitly disagrees with you.
kwAwk
@Mnemosyne:
I disagree. Having sex with someone because you think it is possible they might rape you anyways isn’t rape. It may be unpleasant, but it isn’t a perpetrator forcing themself on a victim. A guy isn’t responsible for what a woman may be thinking, only what she says.
Think of the song Paradise by the Dashboard Light. It’s a song where a woman says no, but the guy keeps pushing for her to have sex with him. He’s the agressor in the situation, even using the old baseball analogy through out the song. She then says stop and makes him promise that he’ll love her forever and a bunch of other things before she gives in and says yes. If he then breaks up with her three days later, is he guilty of rape?
Amir Khalid
@kwAwk:
Oh yes it is. In most jurisdictions, if you took part in any sex act under a stated/implied threat of violence by the other party, it’s rape/sexual assault.
JPL
My worthless cents is Don Lemon needs to be fired.
For those too young to remember, CNN had some pretty good analyst. Aaron Brown was always prepared and had an intelligent show. I still don’t know why they let him go.
Amir Khalid
@kwAwk:
That’s a new one: the Jim Steinman/Meatloaf defence.
dmsilev
@kwAwk: The phrase “when in a hole, stop digging” comes to mind on reading your posts.
beth
@kwAwk: Do you by any chance have a corpulent friend named Al?
scav
@Emma: Well, masculine men wouldn’t let their women out in the street with those sort of clothes on unless they were offering them up to other masculine men that know better than to listen to the words of the little liars.
Honestly, I expect he’s all ashiver at thinking he’s speaking Truth! to Power! when actually all he’s doing is provoking a shudder of revulsion in his anonymous peers and neighbors. He’s a little worm in his own estimation jusging from the evidence.
The Other Chuck
@kwAwk: Neither your opinions nor song lyrics are relevant to the law: in most states, coercion of any kind backed by the threat of physical violence constitutes sexual assault. In several states it goes well beyond even physical violence.
kwAwk
Let me say that if he drugged them with the intention of getting them to have sex with him, then that would qualify as rape as long as the drugs were strong enough to truely affect their judgement.
But I am just thinking that the question of why didn’t you resist or say no isn’t always out of bounds.
lol Amir I was just using it as an example of how our culture expects men to be aggressive in sexual situations.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Really. It’s called duress. It’s a very long established concept.
But one has to have more than a couple of working, firing synapses to realize such.
Therefore, kwAwk.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Again, I’m afraid the law disagrees with you. Coercing someone into having sex with you is rape. Giving someone drugs so they can’t say no (as Cosby is accused of doing) is rape. Having sex with an unconscious person is rape. Using your authority as a cop or teacher or minister to coerce someone into having sex with you is rape. You might not feel like a rapist when you do these things, but you are.
You probably should stay away from women for the rest of your life because, frankly, it sounds as though you can’t tell the difference between forcing a woman to have sex and her freely agreeing to have sex with you, which makes you a very scary person.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: Because he was always prepared and had an intelligent show.
MBA suits don’t like that shit. Not profitable ENOUGH.
cmm
@kwAwk:
So, someone who is bigger and stronger than you comes up to you in an isolated place and says, “give me your wallet.” He doesn’t say any “or else” but he is bigger and stronger than you. He certainly appears to have the ability and opportunity to hurt you. Now YOU may decide to take the chance of saying “fuck no!” and roll with whatever happens next, or you may try running away or shouting for help. And this may work, or it may get you in worse trouble. Or you might think, “I am not going to take the chance of getting hurt, and I just want this to be over, so I’ll give him the damn wallet.” And you do. And he got your wallet.
Another person might say, “fuck no” and the dude punches him and takes the wallet by force.
Are you arguing that that person was robbed but you were not?
RareSanity
@kwAwk:
Dude, after your first comment I was thinking that you may have been sincerely trying to gain some understanding of the situation here. But clearly, you are seriously misinformed about how the whole “consent” thing works…and if you are not careful, you will find yourself explaining your “philosophy” on the expectations of men as sexual aggressors in society, to members of law enforcement…as they are arresting you.
Helen
@kwAwk:
You’re using Meatloaf to make your point? Now I am sure you’re a troll. NO ONE can be that stupid.
STFU, asshole.
beth
@Villago Delenda Est: IIRC, they replaced him with Anderson Cooper. I guess Brown wasn’t pretty enough.
drkrick
I’m not a big Meatloaf fan, but I don’t remember the part where he drugged her or left her with the impression that he might beat her up if she didn’t let him “score.”
kwAwk
Sorry guys. The reference to Meatloaf is valid. It is a classic song in the American rock&roll canon and represents fairly well our cultural values regarding sexual roles in our society.
Villago Delenda Est
@drkrick: I think “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is the epitome of short term thinking, without considering the consequences.
So now I’m waiting for the end of time, that’s all that I can do, do do.
Waiting for the end of time so I can end my time with you.
japa21
@kwAwk: He was guilty of rape right from the beginning.
Mnemosyne
@drkrick:
The whole point of the song is that she wants him to make a specific statement that he’ll love her until the end of time before they have sex. There is absolutely no indication that he would force her to have sex rather than say what she wants him to say. She has a condition to be met, he finally agrees, and the punchline is that they’re both sick of each other and want to break up almost immediately afterwards.
The fact that kwAwk seems to hear the song differently than pretty much everyone else on the planet is, again, more than a little creepy.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk: Cripes, what a maroon.
If anything, the girl in “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is every bit as aggressive as the boy. In the sense that she sets conditions for access to her sex and he complies with them, to his eternal regret.
shelley
Cause he’s a bit of a pretty boy? That’s all I can think of.
kwAwk
@cmm:
No that isn’t what I’m saying. The situation you describe will always be one considered to be an implied violent threat because in no situation would you expect a stranger to come up to you and demand that you give them their wallet. If my mom came up to me in a dark alley and demanded to have my wallet, that probably wouldn’t be robbery if I gave it to her. Unless I had some other tangible reason to believe my mom was capable of violence if I didn’t give her my wallet.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Well, except for the part where she’s in control and he doesn’t force her to do anything, which is pretty much the exact opposite of your claims.
gene108
Weird turn to this thread.
a) Men are expected, in our society, to be the “aggressor” or at the least a bit assertive in starting a relationship. Boy has to ask the girl to the school dance. Boy has to ask the girl, if she wants to go on a date. Boy asks girl to marry him. And so on.
b) The chasm between the above and intimidating a girl to have sex with you is huge and I do not see how the two can be confused.
Omnes Omnibus
@kwAwk:
Your “logic” is a bit circular here.
Kay
@kwAwk:
I don’t know of course, but I think it sometimes helps men to understand the crime better if a man is the victim because then you can take it out of whatever ideas you might have about having sex and/or gender roles and see it more clearly. This is rape in the military. Male victims and perpetrators. It’s a different dynamic but it gives you the framework to understand that it’s about asserting power and control.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
If you’re a fuckhead, it’s astonishingly easy to confuse them.
kwAwk
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t hear the song any differently than you and that is the point. The male portayed in the song is clearly the sexual agressor, but there is no implied or explicit threat of rape.
catclub
Ha, ha. I have no real idea who Don Lemon is, and you can’t make me know.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
If he didn’t use force to make you give him your wallet, then obviously you gave him the money voluntarily and there was no crime committed.
Suzanne
@kwAwk: Well, if Meatloaf said it, it must totes be okay.
Or it could be, you know, a song. Like, made up. As in not real.
RareSanity
Dammit, sucked in by a troll. That bastard had me going for awhile too.
But lyrics to a Meatloaf song to prove a point? That’s just like the serial killer that leaves the clues behind wanting to be caught eventually.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: That’s pretty much how “financial services” work in this country, come to think of it.
kwAwk
@Mnemosyne: Nope, that is where implied threats come in. I explained that in post 87.
Villago Delenda Est
@beth: I always liked Aaron Brown, back from his humble beginnings as the anchor on KING 5 news in Seattle back in the 80’s.
Intelligent, prepared, actually behaved like a journalist…
Yup, just too far above CNN’s current slovenly standards to be kept on.
Omnes Omnibus
@RareSanity
I know the territory, I’ve been around
It’ll all turn to dust and we’ll all fall down
And sooner or later, you’ll be screwing around
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
You’ve already said that implied threats don’t exist for rape, so they can’t exist for muggings. If the guy walks up to you and says, “Give me your wallet,” where’s the implied threat any more than, “We’re going to have sex”? It’s not his fault that you were scared and gave him your money. He doesn’t know what’s inside your head. How can you prosecute the guy when you voluntarily gave him your money just because you felt intimidated by him?
RareSanity
@Omnes Omnibus:
Et tu Omnes?
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Need more one syllable words in your explanation, so dumbshit here has at least a narrow chance of comprehension.
Amir Khalid
@kwAwk:
The boy in the song is asking for sex, as even you noticed, not demanding it with a stated or implied threat of violence. So he and the girl negotiate terms, then have unsatisfying but consensual sex. As a number of commenters have been trying to explain to you, Paradise By The Dashboard Light isn’t about a rape situation at all.
kwAwk
@Mnemosyne:
Nope. What I said is that a man being sexually agressive isn’t always an implied threat, and that a woman feeling threatened isn’t always response to an implied threat by the other party. The implied threat is mainly going to be conditioned upon the actions of the rapist and not the response of the victim.
If a woman’s grandfather always joked about beer before he raped her, the woman would be justified in feeling threatened around men who joke about beer, but unless a man knows this particular history, he’s not engaging in an implied threat by joking about beer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: My Crim Law I professor in law school used to posit this question: If a 6’10 300 pound man comes up to you on a dark street outside a club and says “have sex with me” and you comply, is it rape? What if he was going to politely walk away if you said no, does that make a difference? In the mind of the person confronted in that situation, his actual intentions don’t matter because she (or less likely but possible he) doesn’t and can’t know them.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: I disagree.
They apparently have very satisfying sex.
It was long ago and it was far away and it was so much better than it is today
The implication is that their sex has become routine and stale in the intervening time, probably because the immediacy that made it so attractive by the dashboard has been lost.
“Stonn. She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.”
Karen in GA
@kwAwk: Not only are you an ignorant schmuck about the difference between consent and duress, but you don’t even know the Meat Loaf song you’re basing your argument on. She consented right up until she said “stop right there” — and he stopped. Some “aggressor.”
Hey, here’s an idea — tell us how Guns N Roses’ “One In A Million” proves we live in a post-racial society.
Betty Cracker
Now I’ve got that stupid fucking song stuck in my head.
Ella in New Mexico
Don Lemon is a complete and total dumb-ass. What a piece of shit he is to ask that question.
I’ve been following these revelations over the past week or so. Cosby is clearly a disgusting sexual predator, a man who had no problem exploiting his status in the entertainment field in order to gain advantage over women sexually. I don’t understand how he managed to get away with it all these years, if not legally then by being shunned in Hollywood–except that it’s only recently that we take the crime of sexual assault seriously. I read that he DID have a bad reputation, but I’m not sure why he still seemed to get access to so many women so easily.
I remember these kinds of men over the years–high school teachers, college professors, bosses, co-workers, board members. All in positions of some kind of power that they exploited over women. We called them “creeps” or “lechers”. And to be honest, if I even detected a slight amount of “interest”, I actively avoided ever being with them in any situation alone. Not once did I have to fend one off, thankfully. I would have had to pop a testicle or two if that were that the case.
I have been troubled, however, by the way some (not all) of these women CLEARLY knew his reputation yet chose to put themselves in situations that SCREAMED “we’re gonna have sex”. One or two actually kept traveling with him, staying with him in hotels, used drugs and alcohol with him even after the first time he made her “feel like I had been raped”. Janice Dickinson was a 30+-year-old, with a lot of experience using drugs, alcohol and sex for recreation, for Pete’s sake. She was no innocent, star-struck teenager, like one of these women was. She was an idiot, but she still was capable of making decisions, including not hanging out at Cosby’s apartment late at night, drinking and accepting random, unverified “pills”, only to wake up the next morning “feeling like he’d had sex with me”. And now, thirty years later, shoving her face in a camera to declare “Bill Cosby Raped Me!!”
I am not victim-blaming, but throwing the term “rape” at some of these situations just doesn’t seem to fit. Yes, he was a pig. Yes he tried to leverage his fame and make women believe he could help their careers in order to finagle sex. But no where have I read he was violent, threatening or held people against their will, which again, does not mean sexual assault did not occur.
But the rape victims I’ve worked with–they don’t act like some of these women. They are scarred, traumatized, anxious and depressed. They AVOID the perpetrator if they knew him, and avoid to the point of panic situations that were similar to those in which they were assaulted. Most have to be pushed to reveal their assault, to follow through with pressing charges. They don’t find the nearest tabloid 20 years later and get paid to “tell all”.
There were women who lied about being raped in our program. Some just didn’t want to take responsibility for their own actions in order to avoid the repercussions of an illicit sexual encounter. Others were seeking some kind of personal gain, such as a child custody issue or revenge, who did act strangely like some of the women accusing Cosby. They were a nightmare to deal with because it was all their word against the accused, and even though we at the program were very uncomfortable with their stories, in order not to “victim blame”, we still had to advocate for them . I once uncovered evidence about a woman that indicated she was actively making up a sexual assault case against an ex-boyfriend in order to get revenge for him having a new girlfriend. I was advised by our legal counsel that I could not share my information with law enforcement due to confidentiality rules. She carried the story all the way to a grand jury, but thankfully, because of conflicting testimony and lack of evidence, it was no-billed. The guy could have been convicted based on a lie.
I’m also troubled by this weird new dynamic in discussing sexual assault in which women are never to blame, men are always responsible, and there’s no grey in between. That thinking might apply to children, but all women? There’s an environment right now that says women are so easily overpowered, duped, are weak-willed, naive, afraid, indecisive, etc., that they are simply potential receptors of sexual assault no matter what. Really? I can’t agree with that. The Taliban or the Saudi’s might, however, which is why you can’t even look upon their women.
I really think women can be strong, make good decisions, and avoid those that increase the odds that they can be harmed. It won’t stop rape, but maybe it will reduce the opportunities for the pigs out there to take advantage of a situation. Otherwise, it would be pointless to teach my daughter about self defense, about giving the finger to men who think they can exploit her with their power, about maintaining her own health and safety. And I don’ think it is.
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
I defer to your better recollection of the song.
retiredeng
@Tonybrown74: Wild speculation, but he may be a lot more relaxed having come out of the closet. Probably doesn’t make the effort to think very hard. He might be so relaxed he pees his pants too.
The Thin Black Duke
Hey–guys?
Life is too short, y’know?
Hear what I’m saying?
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: I’m not cheating and using the Google for lyrics to this one. I dearly love that song, and have it pretty much memorized.
I think it’s remarkable in that it shows the two parties as equals, with equal power…this back in the 70’s mind you. The girl eventually calls the shots about the encounter, not the boy.
I couldn’t take it any longer, ow I was crazed
and then the feeling came upon me like a tidal wave
started swearing to my God and on my mother’s grave
that I would love you ’till the end of time
I swore I would love you ’till the end of time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ella in New Mexico: Sure some of what Cosby is accused of doing is “merely” hostile environment and or quid pro quo sexual harassment. And some of it may have been women willingly exploiting Cosby’s tendencies in order to gain some advantage. Nevertheless, there is no justification for the sexual harassment and women couldn’t sleep their way to an advantage with him if he wasn’t being a douche. The vast majority of it circles back to him.*
*Assuming that most of these stories are true.
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker:
So now I’m praying for the end of time
To hurry up and arrive
Amir Khalid
@Villago Delenda Est:
I have the album, but I hadn’t listened to it in years. I’m not a big Meatloaf fan myself.
eemom
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’ve always thought they should play Paradise in sex ed classes as an alternative to “abstinence” teaching.
Ella in New Mexico
@Omnes Omnibus: I totally agree with you. In the end, he’s a big fat “creeper”, and I hope he loses his new TV show.
I’m just finding a lot in these stories, and in people’s responses to them, to give me pause. I really wish we had more precise language to discuss sexual assault’s many faces.
Laertes
Lemon tweeted that he’d be on CNN about 15 minutes ago, explaining his sorry self. Did anyone see?
kwAwk
@Karen in GA:
lol All that song proves is that Axl Rose is an asshole.
schrodinger's cat
I am so glad that I have no idea who this Don Lemon is, haven’t watched CNN in a decade, other than at public places like airports etc.
schrodinger's cat
@Elmo: That was in evidence on the multiple threads on the shirtstorm too.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Ella in New Mexico: You have powers.
New Bill Cosby Show Scrapped By NBC
Guess this answers the question about what “rape” is, eh, kwAwk of shit?
Amir Khalid
@Ella in New Mexico:
From your keyboard to the FSM’s monitor.
ETA:
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Pout.
Mnemosyne
@Ella in New Mexico:
On the one hand, Janice Dickinson is a giant attention seeker. On the other hand … it was the 1980s. People were still doing a lot of drugs, and Dickinson was probably doing more than most. Rape laws were still in transition and it probably would have been really hard to get a conviction.
As I understand it, Dickinson got a financial settlement at the time after she threatened to sue so it does seem like something happened that Cosby and/or his attorneys were not eager to have made public.
The whole thing seems kind of like the situation with that Canadian TV host who was just accused of rape and being way into S&M. There’s a mix of women who consented, women who consented for work/professional reasons, and women who didn’t consent at all, and it’s a little hard to figure out which group each person is in.
philpm
@kwAwk: Sorry dude, but you’re wrong. All that song represents is two horny teenagers, and the female not wanting to have sex unless he’s going to commit to her. Nothing more. Your reading sexual aggression into it it just whacked.
schrodinger's cat
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I got my my new MoTo G yesterday and so far I have been quite pleased. Thanks for all your info.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: It’s helpful to keep in mind the first third of the song, in which it’s very obvious that this is a consensual activity.
Ain’t no doubt about it we were doubly blessed
’cause we were barely seventeen and we were barely dressed
This is the girl’s lyric.
She only says “stop right there” as he’s approaching home, to continue the baseball metaphor. Then she lays down her conditions for crossing the plate, and, the boy tries desperately to postpone saying the magic words.
Let me sleep on it, baby baby let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it, and I’ll give you an answer in the morning
The girl will have none of that shit
I gotta know RIGHT NOW
Do you love me?
Will you love me forever
Do you need me
Will you never leave me
Will you make me so happy for the rest of my life
Will you take me away will you make me your wife
I gotta know right now
Before we go any further
Will you love me, will you love me forever?
rikyrah
cannot stand Lemon
CONGRATULATIONS!
@schrodinger’s cat: Hey, that’s awesome! Glad to help. I think I’ll be able to keep mine for a few years.
Got no tips or tricks for you, it’s a very straightforward piece of machinery.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
And yet if that guy jokes about beer and then aggressively pursues sex with her, she will have a case for rape against him, because he did not stop and make sure that she actually wanted to have sex and did not feel threatened by him.
Sex without consent is rape. That’s the law. If you want to change the law so you don’t have to bother to communicate with your partner to make sure she actually wants to have sex with you and isn’t frozen in fear because she’s an incest survivor, you can give it a try.
LongHairedWeirdo
@kwAwk:
You know, you have a really good point.
When I have sex, I can’t see a woman’s face, or feel her body, or hear her words, or ask her questions, or have any appreciation of whether she wants what’s about to happen or not.
Oh, wait. That’s the polar opposite of true, isn’t it?”
Hm. No, your point sucks syphilitic donkey balls through a diarrhetic ass that’s currently defecating.
You are arguing that cases that can’t easily be prosecuted are no longer “really” rape. It’s true: rape can be very hard to prosecute. But it’s still rape, even if it’s so hard to prosecute that it won’t see a courtroom.
You’re arguing a patriarchal construction based upon the idea that maybe he doesn’t know, as if the woman wasn’t *right there* to check with.
Mnemosyne
D’oh! Can a moderator please free me? I used a naughty word.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Villago Delenda Est: I used to watch Aaron on KING5 when I was in grad school and was happy to see him on CNN. Watched his show every night. You’re right intelligent and well prepared with a bit of snark. His leaving was the beginning of the end of my watching CNN.
Mike in NC
Let’s all look forward to the not too distant future, when President Rand Paul has appointed a couple more conservative justices to the Supreme Court, which has banned abortion and all other forms of birth control nationwide. Meanwhile, women who’ve been sexually assaulted will be forced to publicly prove that it wasn’t “legitimate rape” as defined by a Republican Congress.
Mnemosyne
@Villago Delenda Est:
Yep. She says “stop!”, he stops, and they re-negotiate and she re-consents before finishing the act.
I’m still not getting where someone gets Oh, it’s all about male aggression from that song. When she says stop, he does, and there’s no hint that he would do anything else.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne: Exactly. There is no thought, not a hint of it, that the boy will cross home without her explicit approval. He tries to weasel out of saying the magic words to get her consent, but her conditions are non-negotiable, and he eventually agrees. They then move forward…to their mutual regret, but the emphasis is on his regret, her’s is only implied…because she got what she thought at the time she wanted.
I’ll never break my promise or forget my vow
But God only knows what I could do right now
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: He’s fixated on the “baserunning” part with Phil Rizzuto.
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: I’m not getting why Kwawk is under the impression that what happens purely in an artist’s mind has any bearing on real women confronted with violence and violation, who have now been told to bite someone’s dick off.
The thought that men should socially police each other to discourage said violence and violation never seems to have crossed his mind.
Villago Delenda Est
@Suzanne: I’ve got my nightstick right here to do some social policing of dipshits like kaWak.
chopper
@Villago Delenda Est:
That would be great if it wouldn’t be replaced with something worse and more violent.
chopper
I never thought that “dude, it’s easy – just bite a dude’s dick off’ would actually ever be offered up on the news in any way. I weep for society.
the Conster
I’d like to know how many women’s voices it takes to equal one man’s voice, one celebrity’s voice, one politician’s voice. Apparently one man accusing another man is sufficient. It would be helpful to have a handy chart so that women won’t have to wait so many years to be believed, and they will only be believed if the man is a serial sex assaulter and most of his victims step forward.
Suzanne
@chopper: It’s not just, “Dude, it’s easy to bite a dude’s dick off”. It’s “If you didn’t bite the dude’s dick off, you obviously wanted it, you dirty whore.”
Women cannot get justice in this society. Justice is for rich white dudes only.
RedKitten
This is the thing that burns my ass:
Fake rape accusations are rare. Like, REALLY rare.
And yet, women are still granted absolutely no credibility when they accuse a man of rape. Like we see with Cosby and like we saw with Jian Ghomeshi, it takes at least dozen women to collectively attain half the credibility of one famous man.
We women see this. And we know goddamned well that if we’re raped, nobody will believe us. Not unless he raped at least five to six other women, who are also willing to come forward. We know this. We know that the cops won’t fucking help us. We know that if we can actually pull off a miracle and get to trial, that we’ll be grilled much more than our attackers will.
So we just try to forget about it and move on. And yeah, some women will continue to talk to their attackers, because they’re just that fucking desperate to make everything go back to normal.
RedKitten
@the Conster: Exactly. Exactly this.
RedKitten
And both Don Lemon and Kwawk can go fuck themslves sideways with a cheese grater.
Villago Delenda Est
@FlipYrWhig: The baserunning metaphor is obviously from the male perspective, but the truly amazing thing about that song is that while it leans heavily toward the male POV, ultimately, the female has the final say…because the entire episode is consensual. Both parties have equal power in it…unlike in a rape situation, which demonstrates that sex is not what rape is about. Power is what rape is about.
This is where kaWak is totally off base (pun not really intended, but gosh, it fits) in his interpretation of the song. The girl VERY MUCH has the ultimate power here…the boy will not cross the line without her explicit approval, because he’s not asserting power…he wants to get laid, not make a point about who’s boss. He wants to make her motor run…and he can’t do that forcibly. He wants her to enjoy this as much as he does.
Svensker
@GregB:
Crying.
Svensker
@Ella in New Mexico:
Oh, ha ha ha hhah hahhha ahha. You made a funny.
Gravenstone
@kwAwk:
You might want to stop digging now.
kwAwk
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not true at all. If remember correctly, the last line in the song prior to the lady yelling ‘Stop right there’ is a reference to a squeeze play at the plate after the boy rounds third.
Here’s the problem about why rape is so hard ladies. When you go to the police and accuse somebody of a crime, you kinda have to prove that a crime has been committed. With murder this is generally easy. There’s the body officer. Yep, he sure didn’t shoot himself in the back of the head, looks like murder. Don’t have a body, murder becomes harder to prove.
Kid is kidnapped, what is the first thing the officer is going to ask? Do you have pictures of the kid or some other evidence that proves you had a kid to be napped.
If you report a rape, yes people are going to ask you to provide evidence that a rape occurred. It’s a dirty messy process and probably invasive and horrifying for the victims. But it is a necessary evil. We can’t assume that a rape occurred just because a woman has made an accusation no matter how low the probability is of a false accusation.
It is also important to know that rape can involve some messy issues surrounding what constitutes consent, implied threats and the ability to cognatively be able to give consent.
Omnes Omnibus
@Gravenstone: Far, far too late for that advice.
Bobby Thomson
@Samuel Knight:
Don’t forget Useless News and World Distort.
the Conster
@kwAwk:
…and there’s the tell. “We” can just STFU and DIAF now.
Suzanne
@kwAwk: How about you don’t address the women who legitimately think you’re wrong as “ladies”?
sharl
Well kwAwk, you’ve done some quality posting here. Perhaps the truly quality trolls are NOT extinct after all – your work here has given me hope on that score.
And if you know where Floyd Alvis Cooper is these days – assuming you and he are not one and the same – please ask him to check in on occasion, if for no other reason than to show the poseurs how it should be done.
Thank you for your service.
Omnes Omnibus
@kwAwk:
Do you really think that the women (and men, for that matter) who are headdesking over your obtuseness don’t know all that? Your mansplaining is almost as good as Gabby Johnson’s authentic frontier gibberish.
kwAwk
@Suzanne:
When did ladies become a dirty word? Girls I can understand, but I don’t know of a negative connotation to the word lady.
kwAwk
@Omnes Omnibus:
This is generally half the fun of getting into the comments her O2. At some point, and this always happens, a third of the thread will be calling me a drooling idiot who makes no sense, another third of the thread will be yelling at me because I’m stating things so obvious that I am a braying jackass just for saying them, and the remaining third agrees with me.
Bobby Thomson
@Omnes Omnibus:
Because it’s an objectively reasonable fear under those circumstances, as opposed to, say a request from a 4″11″ man on crutches at 2:30 p.m. But I don’t think kwAwk was getting into nuances.
the Conster
@kwAwk:
You’re a braying jackass, but not for the reason you think.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Of course, the funny thing here is that the existence of a dead body does zero to prove who the murderer is. It’s not like the cops go, Yep, there’s a body, the guy who found it must be guilty. Similarly, the mere existence of a rape accusation doesn’t prove who the rapist is.
It’s funny that you’re so resistant to actually having a conversation with a woman that you’d rather go through life with the uncomfortable feeling that you might have raped someone than actually say, “Hey, wanna fuck?” and accept the answer you get.
Gravenstone
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, late to the thread. I see he (?) continues unabated, with industrial excavation equipment.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bobby Thomson: Of course. It was mainly meant to demonstrate that the force or threat of force could simply be implicit in the situation.
Bobby Thomson
@kwAwk:
Another Holocene Human
When I sink my teeth into a Lemon, my mouth gets blasted by sour flavor, but then everything I put in my mouth afterwards tastes sweet.
/sorry, the headline was too tempting
Suzanne
@kwAwk: Then you can learn to use Google, and read about how to properly address women who are your intellectual and ethical superiors.
kwAwk
@Mnemosyne:
I would love to live in a world where it was socially acceptable to ask a woman you don’t know very well ‘Hey, you wanna fuck’. I don’t live in that world though so we rely on more subtle methods.
I would also love to live in a world where women were confident enough in themselves and society mature enough where a woman could come forward with a rape accusation and say I feel I was raped and I feel I was wronged, and here are the means by which I communicated my lack of willingness to have sex, here are the means I took to resist and/or here are the reasons I chose not to resist.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, dumbass is about 1/3 of the way to China by now. Shows no sign of stopping, either.
kwAwk
@Suzanne:
la·dy (ld)
n. pl. la·dies
1. A well-mannered and considerate woman with high standards of proper behavior.
2.
a. A woman regarded as proper and virtuous.
b. A well-behaved young girl.
3. A woman who is the head of a household.
4. A woman, especially when spoken of or to in a polite way.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk: And, amazingly, the boy stopped when he was told to stop right there.
She will let him get to home plate…if he does it on her terms.
He agrees to do it on her terms.
He shoots, he scores! With the explicit permission of the catcher, on the catcher’s terms.
You seem to be missing that part.
You are truly a bear of little brains.
kwAwk
@Villago Delenda Est:
Not missing anything. The verbal articulation of ‘Stop Right There” is the whole point. No ambiguity in that.
the Conster
@kwAwk:
How about a world where a woman is automatically assumed to be credible and acting in good faith when it comes to such matters? That possibility seems to not have occurred to you, which is what everyone but you has grasped.
lethargytartare
@kwAwk:
it is, you obtuse dumbass, and there they are, in the heaviest of heavy petting, just short of committing the actual deed.
and she says stop.
and he stops.
because, unlike you, apparently Meatloaf wasn’t confused about what rape “really” is.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk: Which means it wasn’t rape.
Which means relying on “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” to make whatever idiotic point you’re trying to make is futile. The girl is not under duress. The boy does not wish to coerce her. You can’t make the motor run by forcing it to.
kwAwk
@the Conster:
Susan Smith. Cops automatically assumed her to be credible and acting in good faith when she told him a black man had kidnapped her children and stole her SUV.
How’d that turn out?
the Conster
@kwAwk:
So your point is, all the bitchez be lyin’ about everything? Really?
Villago Delenda Est
@the Conster: His reach exceeds his grasp. This much is pretty obvious.
Because he’s really reaching, and all we’re seeing is massive FAIL.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Actually, we do live in that world. The fact that you don’t realize that it’s 2014 and not 1955 seems to be the problem here.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk: South Carolina. Black men can’t control their animal sexual urges, so it’s perfectly credible to SC law enforcement that a white woman would make such a claim and they’d buy it in a nanosecond.
You really need to come up with better examples that are not so easily consigned to oblivion.
Of course, you being a bear of little brains, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.
kwAwk
@Villago Delenda Est:
Again not true again. As the girl in the song lists her demands, the boy continues to demur that he will tell her in the morning if he will comply with her demands.
But what if she didn’t say Stop Right There! What if instead she had said, I don’t know, what if my parents find out, or what if our friends find out or what if this or that stringing out the situation neither giving affirmative consent or denial until the act is finished. Is is still rape?
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
So when Susan Smith killed her kids and said that a black man did it, that proves that all women are liars, but when Charles Stuart killed his wife and said that a black man did it, he was a strange anomaly who’s not representative of all men?
Villago Delenda Est
@sharl:
BURRRRRN!
kwAwk
@Villago Delenda Est:
And I’m sure any black man would tell you that that is exactly what would probably happen anywhere in this country. If a white woman accuse a black man of rape, it would be taken at face value, but wasn’t that the central plot point of another cultural touchstone, To Kill a Mockingbird?
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
Yes. It is. If she says “stop” or “no” or “I’m not sure,” you are legally required to stop until you have an affirmative “yes.” If that means you don’t get laid that night, tough shit.
Villago Delenda Est
@kwAwk: OK, it’s now official.
Your song listening comprehension is as flawed as your reading comprehension.
kwAwk
@Mnemosyne:
Nope, it’s only a good illustration of why we don’t take crime accusations at face value.
kwAwk
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m a bit rusty on my TKaM but isn’t that the central plot? A black man is accused of rape by a white woman and must be defended by Atticus finch, but in the end is found guilty of rape in spite of it being obvious that the allegations aren’t true in order to defend the honor of the white woman?
Ripley
@kwAwk:
Wow, you’re an intractable asshole. Fuck you and your preferred answer.
kwAwk
@Mnemosyne:
I’m not sure of the letter of the law, I’m not a lawyer, but in practical reality I think that guys until they get that hard no, and especially guys of Cosby’s generation are going to keep pressing the issue.
Suzanne
@kwAwk: Other women dislike the label ladies. They think of themselves as women, men’s equal. To them, ladies connotes fragility and delicacy, and they do not want to be seen as fragile or delicate at work. The doors they want opened are the doors to opportunity. – See more at: http://www.businesswritingblog.com/business_writing/2007/08/women-ladies-an.html#sthash.EXJi3xb9.dpuf
RedKitten
Jesus fucking tapdancing Christ. What is so blisteringly difficult to understand about the concept of MAKING FUCKING SURE THAT SHE WANTS IT before sticking your cock in her? I mean, seriously? Are men that fucking clueless and self-absorbed that they can’t tell the difference between acquiescence and enthusiasm?
kwAwk
@Suzanne:
My apologies if you were offended by my choice of words, there was no intention to offend and no hidden meaning in the choice of words other than I thought usage of the word women in the context would have sounded stilted and harsh.
Another Holocene Human
@Villago Delenda Est: Inter-sec-tio-na-li-ty
Find out what it means to me
as long as we’re on songs
Suzanne
@Mnemosyne: Not to mention, the police didn’t stop looking into Susan Smith. She got caught. It is relatively unusual for mothers to kill their children, which is why she wasn’t looked at closely right away. But she got caught.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@kwAwk of Shit: We do. I used to all the time before I put on the light chains of matrimony. You’d be amazed how often it works. You’d be floored if you knew how often women do it to men. Not men like you, of course.
Most women appreciate the honesty – that is, if you have timing, don’t ask them when they’ve caught you burglarizing their apartment, and are elbow deep in the underwear drawer. It also helps to treat women like fellow human beings instead of magical, vagina-bearing aliens.
That you have the mindset of a rapist and are no doubt physically hideous – children must start to weep when you pass them in the street – is the problem, not society.
Morzer
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/19/nbc-pulls-bill-cosby-sitcom-rape-allegations
Another Holocene Human
@kwAwk: Nutpicking you is feeding the troll but this is personal:
In kwAwk’s world, only men’s testimony counts in rape accusations, much like Biblical or Sharia law.
No. No no no. No no no. This is personal. My mother was raped by a gang of teenagers in college. She was white, they were Black. Because they* had done this so very many times they were actually prosecuted and she became state witness # whatever. Congratulations! Everything about the way she was treated by the police, nurses at school, legal system was shitty. The system did something because of the super serial nature that was becoming a nuisance to them. They didn’t give a shit about the victims who individually were stupid sluts. You know, college students walking home for the library in the dark at night stuff. Stupid and sluts.
A work of fiction that frankly sanitizes issues of injustice and lynching in early 20th century America. You win!
trollollollolololol
*-edited to add: Oops, maybe got a little confused there. I wasn’t born yet after all. She was gang-raped but I think the state was after one particular guy. Dunno if the rest of the people who raped her got prosecuted. I don’t want to look it up because ugh. Ugh.
Suzanne
@kwAwk: In TKAM, black man is accused of raping a white woman, who is in fact being raped by her white father. The black man is convicted so that the white man wouldn’t be.
Once again, here in REAL LIFE, affirmative consent matters.
This is the kind of shit that makes me fear for my life when I go outside.
This is the kind of shit that makes me terrified for my daughters when they encounter men in public places.
Another Holocene Human
@Morzer: They missed the potential to be number one in awkward rape jokes. Shoulda hired Tosh.0 as a creative consultant.
///that’s sarcasm
Another Holocene Human
@Suzanne: If you read a lot of actual lynching narratives (feeling too happy about life or feel like your appetite for food and life is too normal?) the lynching often follows a Black person being wronged by a white person in the community, often with power, and confronting them or attempting to seek redress in some way.
To Kill a Mockingbird is bowdlerized. The reality was so much worse.
Morzer
@Another Holocene Human:
Still good news though. Mind you, Sully will probably have a conniption over those uppity feminazis and their threat to freedom.
CONGRATULATIONS!
Right on schedule:
CNN anchor Don Lemon apologizes after crossing line with Bill Cosby rape accuser Joan Tarshis
(apologies for the NYDN link)
But wait!
‘If my question to her struck anyone as insensitive, I am sorry,’
Aww, it’s only the classic non-apology apology. Sorry, guys.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Pretty sure you never hooked up with anybody by screaming “wanna fuck!” at a passing woman in jogging sweats, like c0ck seems to be suggesting. Putting the moves on a total stranger at a party or *cough* at a poetry slam … yes, true story, I am deeply ashamed … not the same as creeping on somebody with an armful of laundry or yelling “compliments” on the street.
Morzer
Another bit of good news when it comes to abusive men:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/19/julien-blanc-barred-entering-uk-pick-up-artist
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Doesn’t Don Lemon get tired of having to apologize all the time?
Did you sell your soul to get on teevee, Don?
Didja?
Suzanne
@Another Holocene Human: Yes, you are right. But the crux of that part of TKAM is that they threw Tom Robinson to the wolves to protect Bob Ewell. Mayella’s well-being was not the issue, since they let her rapist go free.
kwAwk
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Wow Sparky, that sure got super personal really quick. Amazing how you could discern my whole life in including my personality, looks and relationship to children and small animals through one blog comments thread. Or maybe not and you’re just a prick.
Aside from that I’m sure there are men out there who are clever enough to pull off a ‘Do you wanna fuck’ thing once in a while, but like that old How I Met Your Mother episode where the guy teaches Barney about that whole getting naked in the living room thing while she’s in the bathroom, I’m sure it does have novelty value once or twice.
But I don’t mean to speak for the women around here (how’s that Suzanne?) but I’d bet if we asked they’d not be fond of having a naked man in their living room every time they went to the bathroom nor would they want to hear, ‘Hey you wanna fuck?’ from every stranger they met at the grocery store.
Morzer
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
It’s the classic fuck-u-pology. “If you hadn’t been oversensitive, there would have been no problem”.
Another Holocene Human
@Morzer: Another bit of good news is that some Australians started some anti-PUA dating seminars for men and women that talk about the real way to improve your game–without being a negging assholio.
Morzer
@Another Holocene Human:
I’ve always thought the whole negging concept was a form of pre-surrender – the PUA/POS knows he isn’t good enough to get the girl, so gets abusive to make it seem like it was on his terms. Sad bastards anyway, the fleabitten fappers.
Another Holocene Human
@kwAwk: I don’t have to guess, you reveal yourself. Grocery store. You said it yourself. In your utopia, you can hit on people at the grocery store (pro-tip: women are people) and they’re all dropping the broccoli and licking their lips … groovy … ya wanna check out the nasty bathroom behind the meat counter cuz I didn’t have any plans today.
IDK, some people have interests and lives other than stalking strangers in public places and they chat up other people who go to events and make new friends and sometimes somebody says so do you want to come to my place and the other person is like cool, you seem cool why not and then they go back to their place and they they do dirty nasty things that only happen in c0ck’s fevered imagination.
And nobody bursts in on them.
And tells them No!
Nothing much happens. Except maybe they have exchanged contact info and are planning to meet again. Don’t tell c0ck. He’s kind of turning into a third wheel.
Another Holocene Human
@Morzer: The male Australian involved in the anti-PUA seminars said he found out quickly that negging caused him to strike out with the self-confident girls he was interested in, so basically exactly what you said.
kc
Awesome thread, guys.
CONGRATULATIONS!
@Another Holocene Human: No. That seems like odd behavior to me. Sensitivity to time and place is pretty important. But I did hook up with a fine young lady who yelled “nice ass” out her car window as I was riding by on my bike. I had to pull over because I was laughing so hard. Is that the same? No, because I’m a huge guy.
Poetry slam? I could see that, actually.
Tree With Water
This preposterous situation would have been considered a work of surreal comedic genius if Lenny Bruce had concocted it during his prime. Times do change….
Another Holocene Human
You know, on rereading the OP, Lemon’s words were also very hateful to any man who has been raped.
Including a very good friend of mine.
He was 16.
His rapist gave him HIV.
Go to hell, Don Lemon.
Tree With Water
@Another Holocene Human: On the flip side, Lemon’s words were very inspiring to comedians in search of new material. Somewhere, someday, someone will chuckle because of it. Way to go, Don Lemon.
Mnemosyne
@kwAwk:
I see that someone’s never even heard of street harassment. For a lot of women, hearing “Wanna fuck?” from every guy they pass on the street is called Tuesday.
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@kwAwk:
Hi. Actual Black Man, born and raised in SC, here to tell you to jump off this train NOW. You want to invoke Smith’s accusations, but what she did was, in fact, damn near like what Cosby has been doing for years — using prejudice to clear the way to be a evil bastard. That is a horrific defense that flies in the face of how prejudice and racism/sexism work in America.
And now you’ve jumped right onto a really fucking set of sore spots. Cosby was a hero to me as a kid and teen. I had already struggled with his “yelling at the Black Kids on his Lawn” bollicks, though, and already knew he was up to no good around women — this is just pouring salt in wounds that will never heal, and having you use this as a way to defame women going through hell on earth infuriates me. Even moreso since you pull the “oh, I’m just having a ‘discussion'” card; I’m waiting for you to really shell out the “why can’t everyone be rational, like me” bit soon.
This whole situation — your horrific and blind attitude that isn’t exactly rare, W. Goldburg and D. Lemon’s “women gotta prove it!” reactions — are point-blank why women don’t even bother reporting harassment, much less rape; why bother when everyone wants to make you relive these horrors it so they can “prove it actually happened?” to everyone even vaguely curious?
Or, we could try the “hey, reporting sexual assault is ugly and bad, let’s give the people reporting a solid benefit of the doubt” as a try. As someone more likely to be the victim of a false report, I can say with 100% assurance, having actually been involved in these issues? Your risk of false reporting goes down when everyone feels safe that their reports will be actually investigated, and taken seriously.
The more seriously and directly we implement a culture of consent, the better off everyone involved’ll be. And the less people like you’ll have to whine about things you clearly haven’t studied.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: “Nice ass” is a far cry and a pleasant change from what is usually screamed at a bicyclist from passing cars. I would have laughed too. :DD
Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill
@Mnemosyne:
It was really eye-opening, the first time I watched female dancer friends getting harassed. On the street, on stage…yeah. There’s a lot of implied ownership around women in our society that too many guys take advantage of — and yes, it’s a still-learning process for me, too.
When I first started dance, I really wondered why women did so much stuff in packs. It didn’t take long for me to sort out why. Sadly.
Another Holocene Human
@Tree With Water: Don Lemon completely lacks self-awareness.
When he was covering Ferguson, some cop much larger than him actually put hands on him and dragged him as he was broadcasting live.
Tell me again about how you “shut that whole thing down”, Don.
I’m starting to wonder about the color the sky in his world for real.
LongHairedWeirdo
@kwAwk:
You are once again mixing “this is a good case for prosecution” with “is consent present or not?”
She’s right there. Either she says yes, verbally or non-, or you *find out* if she’s okay, because there’ll be another chance to get laid, but will never be a chance to remove “rapist” from your personal reality if you don’t make sure.
It doesn’t matter if she presses charges, or if you’re indicted, or if you go to trial, or if you’re found not-guilty.
What matters is, either she consents, or you stop, or you’re a rapist.
That’s reality. Regardless of what the legal system ends up saying.
EthylEster
@kwAwk: Is that you, DougJ? I think you are getting desperate.
Mnemosyne
Short version for people who don’t want to have to read the whole thing:
kwAwk: This whole “consent” thing is just too confusing. Who knows what women want? Amirite, doodz?
Every other man on the thread: WTF is wrong with you?
(Obviously, the women are wondering the same thing, but I doubt that kwAwk ever thought women were going to agree with him. He does seem a little shocked to not get any “bros before hos” support, though.)
Marvel
@RedKitten: red kitten..I love you.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am pretty sure in the eighties no newcaster would have asked a rape rape victim “why didn’t you bite the dick?” on national television. Seriously, WTF?
kwAwk
@Woodrow/asim Jarvis Hill:
I’m sorry for the delay in my reply but I do think you bring up some interesting issues.
My response is that here in this thread I really haven’t offered much of a defense for Cosby, I’ve mainly spoke in defense of Don Lemon though I disagree with how he phrased his question and I think there were classier ways of presenting the issue.
The truth is that one of the biggest parts of the foundation of our justice system is that the burden of proof is supposed to be on the prosecution, aka the representative of the accuser. For a person to be convicted of a crime the burden is on the prosecution to prove that A) a crime was committed and B) the person accused of the crime is the true perpetrator of the crime. So yes, like it or not, if a woman makes an accusation of rape it is up to her to prove that a crime was committed and that the person she accused committed the crime (with the assistance of the police and prosecutor of course).
But this case isn’t being tried in a court of law it is for whatever reasons, fair or not, now being tried in the court of public opinion years after the fact. It is not unfair to the woman making accusations to expect of her to prove her allegations, and yes that includes speaking to issues of whether she had communicated to the accused her lack of willingness to participate in the sexual activity, how she resisted, and if she didn’t resist, why she didn’t. If her accusations are based upon implied threats then it is perfectly reasonable to ask her to explain those implied threats so that we can make a determination as to whether her feelings of being threatened are reasonable.
A conviction for rape, or even allegations of rape, is a very serious matter and can affect the accused for life. The charges deserve to be taken seriously enough to require a thorough inquire into the accusations.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@kwAwk: You might want to read up on the accusations against Cosby since Cole is to damn lazy to post any real links. This isn’t about date rape or any gray zone nonsense like that – it’s about drugging people and then messing with them while they are out.
Steve from Antioch
I never thought that Cosby was funny.
J R in WV
@kwAwk:
No, no – just no. That last third you mention, they just can’t stand to “discuss” it with you.
No one is agreeing with you. Really.
That is all.
kwAwk
@J R in WV:
Nice that you don’t happen to mention what it is JR. We’ve spoken about a variety of issues in this thread surrounding the topic. Yes, I know that in this thread I’ve taken on a position which is contrary to the popular wisdom on a left wing blog and I didn’t expect to get much back up on the issue.
If you have any specific issues with what I’ve said, I’d be happy to ‘discuss’ it with you, but if you’d rather sit back and put out passive agressive barbs, then that’s okay too.