The most irritating thing about the whole Kavanaugh bullshit is that I know with every fiber of my being that he did everything he is being accused of, and the reason I know this is because I was one of those special kinds of asshole drunks that he palled around with for years. I never sexually assaulted anyone, and I didn’t whip my dick out at anyone, although I have a buddy who did the EXACT same thing at a party and I have another friend who stuck his dick on the bar on top of a ten dollar bill. I would never have done anything like that because I was a drunk even back then and would never do anything to risk being banned from the only bar on campus.
The reason the Duke Lacrosse team was so easily blamed for what turned out to be lies is because it was so god damned believable. That’s what fraternity assholes were, and in many cases, unfortunately, still are. It’s an excuse and an explanation to say that I was a product of my environment- I grew up on a college campus, watched college males at their worst, played college lacrosse in high school because it was a club team, was on all sorts of male only clubs and sports teams, later in a fraternity, later in the male dominated army where the culture was, believe it or not, far worse in the late eighties and early nineties than it is now.
I objectified women, said horrible things, attended fraternity parties that were called and advertised as “the meat market” because it was only open to women and the fraternity. I did those things, and looking at the stuff Mike Judge and Kavanaugh’s friends and contemporaries have said and written, I know for god damned sure ole “Bart O’Kavanaugh” was there and doing that shit, too.
I’m not proud of the things I did, although like every jackass I was with back then, I bet I was sure proud when it was going on. And here’s the thing- I thought all the way through those years that I was a good guy, but I was part of that toxic culture and a willing participant. It’s embarrassing. My cheeks flush when I think about it now. I regret it, and I am sorry, and I wish I could apologize to anyone I may have unintentionally hurt. Earlier I said it was an excuse and an explanation- the excuse is for me, the explanation is for you. The excuse is how I live with the shame, because I know there were a lot of men my age who didn’t act like a frat asshole, who didn’t look at relationships as “scoring” and little more, who didn’t treat women like objects. Who didn’t call girls sluts or find things like “Renate Alumni” funny and snicker about it. The explanation is that this is how things were and regrettably still seem to be in many places.
I’m not trying to paint myself as history’s greatest monster- I had and still do have lots of female friends form the era- I’m super stoked to see a bunch of them this weekend at Homecoming, but the fact of the matter is that while I individually never did the sorts of things Kavanaugh has been accused of, I was a willing participant in the larger culture that allowed those things to happen and shamed women into silence. I’m complicit. Again, this is not a post I am enjoying writing because it’s embarrassing and painful. It hurts to realize that 16-22 year old me is not someone most of you would have liked.
It does, on the other hand, afford me the crystal clear clarity that allows me to say with 100% confidence that after watching Kavanaugh disgracefully trot his wife out in front of the cameras and spew lie after lie in his interview and elsewhere, that he is guilty of everything he has been accused of and probably a helluva lot more. Women don’t just make this shit up. And men who pretend they do are as emotionally mature as 17 year old stoned and drunk me and should be summarily ignored.
He’s lying. He was a fall down drunk with a bunch of rich prep school boys who were also fall down drunks. There were no rules, no consequences, and no boundaries, because they were a bunch of the untouchables. Little Geoffrey Baratheons in blue blazers having their way with the world and smirking through life as royalty. And you know who, besides me, isn’t fooled by this bullshit?
Women. Because women have been on the receiving end of this nonstop harassment, the assaults, the stigmatizing, the, well, you name it. While Brett Kavanaugh can conveniently wipe his memory, the victims and the other women can’t. They lived it, they are reliving it now, and there is no closure for them, even though I think closure is a bullshit concept. There’s no closure for victims of trauma, there’s only justice and hoping things get a little bit easier and a little bit more livable over time.
So every fucking scumbag asshole rushing to put this guy on the court can just go to hell. It makes me incandescent with rage to think that RBG, Sotomayer, and Kagan may have to sit in the same room as this prick. It’s infuriating. Because I have his number, and so do the women who have been on the end of abuse from dickheads like me and him.
And that’s why you listen to fucking survivors, because they’re telling the truth and being revictimized again in the process. And if you’re still reading this, I’m sorry. I should have been better.
TenguPhule
Classic Cole.
TenguPhule
And you too now qualify as a Supreme Court Justice.
zhena gogolia
Great post, John. We love you.
The Kavanaugh thing is really messing me up.
TenguPhule
Like a fine wine, you matured with age.
TangerineyDreamy
Thanks for sharing your college-days assholery. I have similar stories to confess if I had time. If Brett Kavanaugh would come clean, like you just did, and admit he’d been a rich, entitled drunken prick… I could probably believe he’d changed. But, of course, he can’t do that, because he also tried to commit a few rapes… and since he never tracked down and apologized to those women, he’s obviously the same now, at 53, as he was at 18.
Droppy
The difference between John Cole and Senate Republicans? Self-awareness and integrity (and I’m not talking about senate Republicans.)
JPL
I assume that at some point the court could hear laws mandating the legality of sex offender laws. There are a lot of asshole boys caught who were the same age as Kavanaugh now labeled for life. I wonder how he feels about that label.
Also the asshole believes in total property rights, never mind about zoning laws and environmental concerns. Sure the evangelicals will get someone on their side who is homophobic and against Roe, but good luck with that clean water and air that you are use to. .
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Same here. Incidents buried deep in the past resurfaced again. I am having physical reaction to this shit.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
one of the dems really should whisper into Turtle’s ear “we’re going to have a blast impeaching Rapey come our turn, enjoy buddy”
Bex
What Zhena said. And thank you for the post.
PsiFighter37
Preach it, Cole. And good on you for having the maturity to evolve.
Schlemazel
I was a nerd, a geek, unfuckable as a kid. I saw how these types of boys treated women & hated them for it, hated girls for choosing them over me and hated myself for not being able to get a girlfriend. I watched guys that Cole describes (I have always studied people, it took me the first 25 years of my life to understand them well enough to become a real person) and he is dead on. If any guy tells you he never saw this behavior he is also a liar
kindness
Oh no. John just confessed. Who has the FBI’s number?
Keith P.
I went to a private school, and whipping dicks out was not unheard of. In fact, there was a legendary story about one of my classmates getting shitfaced, and while he was on his hands and knees throwing up, the brother of the party host whipped his dick out and slapped the guy’s face with it. I’ve seen another classmate set his dick down on the desk of someone else sleeping and tap their shoulder to wake up. (all-boys’ school, plus this was the early 90s before that was commonly considered true “sexual assault”….I stabbed a classmate with a compass in this era and wasn’t arrested or even reprimanded)
schrodingers_cat
@TangerineyDreamy: No he is worse now. He has not an iota of plausible deniability left.
LuciaMia
John, just remember, Lily could never love an asshole.
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: I agree. With all of it.
Patricia Kayden
@TangerineyDreamy: I’ve heard Conservatives say that even if he did what he’s accused of, he should still be confirmed. He could have confessed and then asked the public to forgive him since Republicans don’t care whether he’s guilty or not. They only care that’s he’s one of them.
Ben Cisco
THIS is how a man handles his business. You recognized. You learned. You owned it. Any and all of those things puts you light-years ahead of the entirety of the GOP, particularly and especially Whiskey Dick McIncelpants.
Dorothy A. Winsor
It took courage to write this, John. Good on you.
SaneMD
Very well said, John. You are one of the good ones.
The Moar You Know
One of the biggest determining factors in my selection of colleges was that they unequivocally banned frats and spent a considerable amount of money to make that stick. Sadly, they eventually lost, but I was gone by then.
I’d been a working musician for several years before deciding to go back to school, and I’d played frat parties, and I wanted absolutely nothing to do with those kinds of people. And it was pretty nice, after I got there, to not have to worry nearly so much about my girlfriend getting raped if she went to a party without me. Not to say it couldn’t have happened, but the odds, y’know, went way down.
I didn’t know the term “toxic masculinity” back then, but would have instantly know what anyone was talking about had they used it. It was those guys. The guys who hired a bigshot law firm and put my college through a decade of litigation, all so they could have a booze and rape club on campus. They got the right to the club, but they’ve still never been allowed to put a house on the campus grounds, thank God. But they did win. And the GOP is about to put one of them on the Supreme Court, because he’s promised that the president won’t get charged with any crimes while he is on it. That’s a hell of a thing to write about your country. Can’t believe we’re here, but here we are. Booze and rape nation.
namekarB
I too regret the horrible things I did in my youth. Alcohol and drugs only released the inner beast. (OTOH if I just stuck to smoking hooters I would have been mellower instead of a testosterone fueled animal). I cannot undo my past. Now retired at 70 years old, when I have coffee with the boys (all my age or older) in the morning the objectifying of women by my coffee mates continues. I cringe but have kept my mouth shut (so far). My point is that damn near every adult male knows deep down what the truth is.
cmorenc
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Won’t likely happen – because removal from office via impeachment requires a 2/3 supermajority, and how soon do you think we’ll have less than (1/3 +1) US Senators who are not either: (unreformed male assholes) OR (ideologues who find unreformed male assholes acceptable, so long as they reliably vote to enact their preferred ideology – some of whom are female ideologues)?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Anyone who’se had to work for a jackass like this? They don’t limit their abuse to women…
Cheryl Rofer
Thanks, John. I think all of us who went to high school and college know that what you’re saying is true and Kavanaugh is lying. And he knows he’s lying.
@zhena gogolia: I have hated this past week and its exploration of frat-boy sexuality along with the denial and shaming by the old-boy Senators. I’ve been relatively lucky – no rapes, just the usual constant harassment and several sexual assaults. That’s pretty horrible that something like that is “lucky.” It’s exhausting. We’ve all (women, that is) been through some of the elements of this at some time. But not just women. The Brett Kavanaughs of the world are equally disgusting to anyone not a cis male, and the Senators’ show is to tell us how little anyone else matters.
hueyplong
“Poor Brett” is just days away from being the ultimate entitled, lifetime-appointed asshole, and he’ll turn it up a notch as revenge for having had his entitlement questioned publicly.
Just a little something to get your car started on November 6.
Cermet
Confession time for me. First, how ironic that a girl I knew as a young teen (very) and haven’t heard from since just contacted me on face book tonight. We had a good text exchange about old times. I apologized for the two times I too acted inappropriately and did not treat her with respect (thank god it was very minor compare to this prick; even then, I knew no meant no and one HAD to have verbal consent no if or but’s.) She accepted my apology with grace and considered my transgressions as youthful foolishness. Still, very glad to have the chance to address this bad behavior on my part (again, thank god) this inappropriate behavior on my part. Strange it occurred now (her text contact after all these years, that is; I am FB friends with her brother, so, of course, she was aware of my presence on FB.)
OzarkHillbilly
Say what you want about fraternities, I worked on the doubling of one (building an addition)(at UMR, now MST), and one day when sent on a quest to find a long lost footing (or something or other) I entered a library where I found an all but unbroken collection of National Geographics dating back to 1921.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttttttt……………. My old man was born in 1923.
susanna
Thank you for this.
cmorenc
@John Cole:
The one thing that disturbs me about this:
…is that it is only true in most cases, but not all. So, do you convict every man of sexual misconduct if a woman alleges such, because most (but not all) women are telling the truth?
Faithful Lurker
I went to public schools in Jacksonville Florida. Graduated from HS is 1963 and I can say, with total honesty, that the entitled behavior of the boys was the same as the behavior of the private school jerks. I hated them and couldn’t wait to get out of Jax and hope I never see it again. Thank you, John. You are beloved by jackals in all your glory.
khead
So that’s Daphne, Fred and Velma in the last pic, correct?
Kevin Schultz
Much respect for not being part of the problem.
zhena gogolia
@hueyplong:
God, I hope you’re wrong but I’m afraid you’re right.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Peggy Orenstein wrote a book called “Girls and Sex,” which reports on her interviews with scores of upper middle class girls in high school and college, and their experience with and ideas about sex. IOW, girls from Kavanaugh’s milieu. They report that fraternity parties were the places they faced the most sexual danger. It’s a good book. I recommend it.
Ben Cisco
One more time for the peeps in the back!
Kay (not the front-pager)
You’re right, I wouldn’t have liked you in that period. I probably would have been afraid of you too. I might have hitchhiked in college, but I wouldn’t go into a frat house (or be around a frat member) without a couple of male friends, the ones I thought of as “normal.”
That said, I was my own kind of asshole. I was judgmental, arrogant, cynical, and angry (or more accurately, pissy). Also, I was a pretty girl and I used it. So if you’ll forgive me I’ll forgive you.
But I don’t think, if you were to try to come off as a choirboy when we all know it’s fake, you should be given a promotion to the highest court in the land, a position held by only 113 people in all of history.
khead
@cmorenc:
Wrong Bat-time. Wrong Bat-Channel.
notoriousJRT
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
This.
SenyorDave
I have to remind myself every once in a while of this fact:
Donald Trump was caught admitting to committing sexual assault. More than a dozen women came forward and said he sexually assaulted them. And most Republicans either:
1. Didn’t believe the women
2. Didn’t care if he did
Even if he they believed Kavanaugh did it, most of them wouldn’t care
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Sad to say, the kind of people who need to read this never will, and would never understand it if they did.
Adam L Silverman
@kindness: I do.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
John.
You are a good person. You may have done (okay, did do by your own admission) a lot of assholish dickish things, but that doesn’t on its own make you a dickish asshole.
You — unlike the current POTUS*, most members of his family and Cabinet and an assortment of nominees and appointees — are actually self-aware and capable of both reflection and repentance.
Try not to beat yourself up. We don’t come here for the saints. We love you, and part of what we love is your willingness to share your warts-and-all growth. It’s a rare and precious thing, John. Thank you.
eemom
I appreciate all you’ve said, but I have to say, again, that there is a huge, huge difference between one and two. I honestly believe that most men, however drunk or assholish or misogynist, are NOT capable of rape. I think being a rapist or a would be rapist is a specific pathology that has zero causal connection with age, drunkenness, or misogyny, though of course it often co-exists with those things.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@LuciaMia: Disagree. Lily loves him unconditionally and unreservedly. He couldn’t do anything to make her stop.
khead
@SenyorDave:
You just described Fox Grandmas. They are the worst folks on my Internets.
Mnemosyne
@Cermet:
It was not a coincidence. She remembered, or her memory was triggered by all of this shit, and that’s why she contacted you. I’m glad that you are a good guy and were willing to man up and apologize. It probably meant a lot to her.
The guy who harassed me relentlessly my freshman year of high school is long past being able to apologize — he died in a drunken car crash before graduation. I sometimes worry that I wished it on him.
txvoodoo
Thank you, thank you. I wish all the guys who were borderline (or worse) and now see what they did, and recognize the pain it may have caused, would grow up and say “I was wrong. I’ve learned.” It might go a long way towards healing what many of us feel.
Ed_finnerty
I saw what the women lawyer did to the women at the gomeshi trial. I am afraid this ‘assistant’ will shred Her.
Gomeshi ‘won’ but he is professionally destroyed. I hope the same for kavashit.
The courage of Ms. Ford is truly admirable.
Villago Delenda Est
Quite aside from Kavenaugh’s enthusiastic participation in this toxic culture, he’s a perjurer, a Rethug operative, a person of highly questionable personal financial acumen, and a member of the Federalist Society.
Unfit to serve as a judge at a moot court.
debg
A brave post, John. We all did stupid things in our youth, and participated in or accepted toxic masculinity. The point is to learn from the past–our personal past, our culture’s past, humanity’s past. Otherwise all those screw-ups get wasted.
debbie
I think you may be describing one of my brothers. Frat rat all four years of college, big on drinking and partying, but more a happy drunk than a fall down drunk. During the Preppy Murder trial, I remember arguing with him because he was stupid enough to say that no sometimes didn’t mean no. I’d hate to think he’d have pulled anything like Kavanaugh did. I’d have to kill him.
TaMara (HFG)
Great post. I am not sure I can go another week of this. It is seriously messing with my psyche in ways I thought I was beyond. The feeling of helpless rage will not abate.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@hueyplong:
Hope to gods you’re wrong.
notoriousJRT
@Villago Delenda Est:
Exactly.
WaterGirl
You’re one of the good guys now, Cole. Of course we love you.
Emma
John, usted si es un hombre y un caballero.
eemom
There is also a difference between rape and other kinds of sexual misconduct. Sexual harassment is horrible and unforgivable, but it’s still not the same as rape.
NickM
@cmorenc: IMHO, the accusation itself establishes abuse by a preponderance of the evidence – that is, that it is more likely than not that the woman’s story is true since that is almost always the case (very few false reports). Maybe an accusation with no additional evidence should not alone count as proof beyond a reasonable doubt, but unless countered by stronger evidence to the contrary a plausible accusation like Dr Ford’s should be enough prima facie to deny someone a job.
debbie
@Villago Delenda Est:
And just how does he think saying he was a virgin is some sort of proof he never assaulted anyone?
Dorothy A. Winsor
See this thread from a couple days ago, which contains a summary of an article about rape in the Washington Post. According to the article, the incidence of rape varies widely from culture to culture. The two most relevant facts seem to be whether the rapist believes they’ll pay a price and whether they have the approval of their peers.
TenguPhule
@JPL:
IOKIYAR.
SATSQ.
TenguPhule
@LuciaMia:
Dogs can love assholes too. Some even lick them.
AliceBlue
Thank you for this John. You’re a good man.
notoriousJRT
@notoriousJRT: But it is the liklihood that he did assault these women (and the callous denials he makes along with his powerful, amoral supporters) that places him beyond the pale.
Jimmm
@Ben Cisco:
THIS. Boys do stupid stuff. Men take responsibility and make amends. Craven political hacks lie and deny.
Heidi Mom
Bravely said, John. Thank you.
Omnes Omnibus
Like Cole, I was in a fraternity in college and played a sport not famous for non-toxicity (in my case, rugby). I never committed any assaults and, as far as I know, no one in my fraternity or my rugby team did either. I’d like to think that me and mine were some of the good ones, but, even if we were, we left a lot to be desired.
sukabi
@schrodingers_cat:Kavanaugh’s worse now because he’s never taken responsibility AND he’s still continuing at least part of his behavior…female clerks as objects….bet some of them have a few stories that won’t get told because it would ruin their careers.
John good on you for owning your past shame and growing into a good man.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (HFG): I have been feeling so angry that I decided to try to put words to it. I had no words beyond anger and rage. Thanks to a few folks on an earlier thread, my anger alert system has been fleshed out. Somehow having the words makes me feel better.
TenguPhule
@TaMara (HFG):
5 weeks and change to voting day.
TenguPhule
@WaterGirl: Are you operating a DEFCON or Hurricane system?
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: P.S. So far today I am at Code 3: Fury.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Code 5 scares me a lot.
Mnemosyne
@TenguPhule:
Hurricane.
@Omnes Omnibus:
It should. ?
stinger
Thank you for this post, John. To take what Ben Cisco said above, you recognized, you learned, you owned — and you changed. The Brett Cavanaughs of this world *may* taper off that behavior, but not because they’ve changed, only because their environment has changed.
I haven’t understood why so many people seem shocked by Dr. Ford’s assertion. I attended a state university in the ’70s, and many of the frats and men’s dorms had similar cultures. Specifically, the Dekes had the same reputation as Cavanaugh’s Dekes at Yale. Nothing about this story is remotely surprising. For me, it’s not so much what he did as a “teenager,” it’s that he now refuses to acknowledge it, own it, and apologize for it. Instead, he lies. Typical Trump appointee.
Mai Naem mobile
I have to wonder what the Clintons talk about. Karma is a b****. They must be laughing about Kavanaugh having to face questions about his sex life. Ken Starr getting fired from Baylor. Jim Comey being canned.
TaMara (HFG)
@WaterGirl: Put me at Code 4.
eemom
The No Fucking Shit award goes to…..
Why is this screamingly obvious point of common sense not something that’s been emphasized everywhere from the get go…..right after the gazillion bullshit repetitions that Kav “categorically denies the allegations”??
TaMara (HFG)
@TaMara (HFG): And pretty damn close to code 5.
Argiope
@TaMara (HFG): I was in the grocery store a few days ago having a distinct feeling of depersonalization, as though I wasn’t actually real or there. I haven’t had that in a long, long time (like maybe decades). I think it’s because constantly hearing the message from the Orange Menace on down, that not reporting at the time is somehow suspect or irresponsible, makes me feel invisible. I’m way better today after taking most of yesterday and today away from this story and going out to register some voters this afternoon. But yes, it’s so viscerally awful, and really, really infuriating. John, your post makes me feel seen. So thank you. I don’t think any of us can ask for perfection, from ourselves or others. But working towards being better: that we can do.
TaMara (HFG)
@TenguPhule: I don’t think even that can undo what’s going on right now. I may not be enough.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@stinger: Totally OT, but hey, Stinger, I went to Biaggi’s last weekend and had that squash ravioli. :-)
TenguPhule
Headlining at Wapo now. This is a breaking story with little information available.
Patricia Kayden
@cmorenc: There are often statutes of limitation so you can’t convict men of all sex assault allegations made against them.
sukabi
@Mai Naem mobile: yeah the forward facing players have had their comeuppance, but the elves and people pulling the strings and paying the bills are still at it.
Patricia Kayden
@TenguPhule: Well, at least it wasn’t Jeanine Pirro. Small mercies.
eemom
@TaMara (HFG):
@WaterGirl:
If he gets confirmed, all bets are off. This country is officially a place I can’t stand to live in.
TenguPhule
@TaMara (HFG): Come sit by me. Its only fucking Tuesday.
Lee Hartmann
Mr. Cole, you are a mensch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: Also too, like Cole, i was in the army in the late 80s-early ’90s. At Ft. Sill ( Okay, Lawton, OK), everyone knew which were the officers’ and enlisted strip clubs. Everyone also knew to order foreign bottled beer since in wasn’t 3.2% and couldn’t have been fucked with. Some army guys who came out of Princeton ROTC were the first from whom I heard “No means yes, and yes means up the butt.”
oldster
Thanks, Cole. Good post, and all true.
I, too, was an adolescent asshole–disrespectful and sexist.
And yet, despite that, I never raped anyone or attempted to.
1) A lot of men behave very badly as teens and older–I did
2) Very few of them hold a woman down, turn up the music, and clamp their hand over her mouth–I never did that.
It’s weird to say both things, but it’s true: stuff *like* Kavanaugh’s assault on Ford is far too common, but Kavanaugh’s actual assault on Ford is really, really, over the line, and would have been seen so even by young asshole me and my young asshole friends.
Anyhow–the future is going to get better, *provided that* we can hold some of these monsters accountable.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Before your time, I went to a party there and left after 5 minutes because they had sorority girls dressed as Playboy bunnies greeting people at the door. The girls looked miserable. Sorry to have to tell you this.
The only frat parties I went to after that were the polka ones, can’t remember which frat that was. Those were nice.
Kirk
@namekarB:
So stop keeping it shut. I did, it’s amazingly empowering.
See, what I learned first is that I wasn’t the only one uncomfortably holding my peace. What I learned second, later, is that there is a type of offender who pushes all the boundaries, pauses when confronted, then a while later pushes some more.
It turns out to be a major source of the comic book/ game store stereotype despite owners saying they want to more female customers. And the solution is : guys, open your (our) damn mouths and tell them to shut up or leave. Or both.
Because if we are uncomfortable just how do you think the targets of that crap feel?
Ceci7
Thanks for this. Yes, we *do* know how toxic that frat bro culture was and is. It’s telling how rare it is to hear it affirmed this way, even though I have too many memories of bad things that happened to hold them all at once. Most of the women I know share similar knowledge but few of us waste our breath trying to explain it to men.
Elizabelle
@Mai Naem mobile: Donald Trump eventually ending up in federal prison. With Mitch McConnell and all the other GOP leading lights. Plus a not inconsiderable number of White House staffers.
The Trump name being radioactive. The Trump Organization and Trump family, penniless and facing suit after suit on money laundering.
President Tim Kaine ….
jacy
@WaterGirl:
I think I’m always at a 5. Thought sometimes the new kitten distracts me, so that’s probably good for anybody around me.
TenguPhule
@Elizabelle:
The problem with long prison sentences is that there’s always a risk they’ll get out.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Not that it really matters, but which house? If it was the Delts, my apologies. My experience there was quite privileged Some of it was deserved; some was simply because I was a reasonably good looking, preppy white guy.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: I think the polka thing may have been Sig Ep.
Kay
I went to a canvassing training tonight and I have been waiting to feel like they are really coalescing and unified and tonight they were. I was looking for when they stick around after and talk in the parking lot, just because they need to vent about all that’s going on and they want to be around like-minded people- and they are. It feels like 2006.
It’s starting to feel like it will be a good year for the opposition :)
stinger
@cmorenc: @cmorenc:
Of course not. What we do is to take each allegation seriously. The subsequent investigation, trial if warranted, and conviction if the evidence met the standard would proceed according to law.
That kind of hyperbole is just one more way of trivializing these crimes.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, I thought you were a Beta. It was Beta that had the Playboy bunnies. The polka thing was definitely not Sig Ep. Sig Ep was too disorganized for that. They were nice.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: That one is theoretical, but it does seem like the ultimate fury squared. Thankfully, I have never made it past fury. But I am beyond angry about this.
I mean, i knew they were sociopaths, and party before country, and hate women. But the rush to put (at the very least) a would-be rapist on the highest court in the land while putting a woman like Professor Christine Blasey Ford through the trauma of the gauntlet they have planned surpasses any level of hate or disregard that I could have imagined.
geg6
I love you, John Cole.
I’m pretty much a mess over this. My past, which I’d thought I’d dealt with, has really come roaring back and I am just distraught. I need to stop paying attention to this, but I’m drawn to it like forbidden fruit. I don’t know what to do at this point. I think I have to go back into counseling.
Dan B
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The post about incidence of rape and how increasing the chance of consequences reduces the incidence gives me hope. The Kavanaugh debacle is a demonstration that we are on a key pivot point. If Kavanaugh is pushed aside we could reduce rape dramatically. Ut would be better still if we could rid ourselves of Spanky Mc Mushroom.
raven
My old man came home from WW2 and went to the Sigma Nu house at Illinois with his seabag on his shoulder. He wanted me to pledge when I came home from the Nam and went to school but I said “fuck that shit”. As far as the rest of this, I’ve got plenty to be guilty about but it ain’t this shit.
TenguPhule
@Dan B:
The corallery is too horrible to think about.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (HFG): Yeah, that’s not a good place to be. I am truly sorry; I know you are doing your best to take care of yourself. It’s just shocking, all day at every turn there is another big fuck you and horrid treatment of this very brave woman.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule: corollary even. Edit button stat please.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@TenguPhule:
Fuck her. Sorry, she may be extremely competent and qualified, but the 11 old white Republican men need to be doing the questioning. This is insane and absurd.
Ohio Mom
This is an incredibly moving post.
It’s its own Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. The liturgy includes a very long list of sins — not that any single congregant committed all of them but that the congregation as a community is responsible.
We ask for forgiveness of our sins, “in order that we refrain from using our hands to oppress…” In other words, now that we understand, we pray that we will go forth and be intentional in avoiding causing harm to others.
Now, I don’t find the actual service inspiring at all. But it gives me a model so that when I see true repentance, such as this post, I recognize — and appreciate — and deeply respect — what is in front of me.
Yasher Koach, John: go from strength to strength.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (HFG): Hugs. For me it’s not Preternatural Murderous Calm, but I get to the point that I have no words, just rage and tears. I can’t even speak.
TenguPhule
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal: No mention yet whether she’s actually accepted.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Betas got tossed the year before I arrived on campus. Drugs and god knows what. The school waited until the last of the old Betas graduated and then let them re-form. They did so as racists. Ask the school to host an alumni dinner but that no black or Jewish students be on the serving staff. I liked the legacy Betas; the new ones were Kavanaugh.
Enough about LU Greek politics.
Dan B
Mr. Cole
The willow is too close. This is your karma. Pray to Lily!
Dog
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@zhena gogolia:
ΠΟΛΚΑ?
AM in NC
Thank you, John. None of us is perfect. The best we can do is try to learn from our mistakes. You may not have been one in your youth, but you are now an ally. Thank you.
WaterGirl
@eemom: I am nodding.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@TenguPhule:
Thanks, good point. I was theorising ahead of the data, as is typical of me.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: My mind read these as Cole 1 through Cole 5. Which gave me a chuckle especially at Preternatural muderous rage. I could festure them in a John Cole post. Would it include some mix of flooded yards, GOP politicians, mops, and critters or what?
rikyrah
I went to a majority White college with a strong Greek scene. The Greek life was the majority of the social life in college. I went to college surrounded by Kavanaughs. Nothing happened to me, but I know those young women. I was the sober friend at frat parties. I didn’t drink ( personal choice). I was the lookout for the girls who might have had too many. Sometimes, I didn’t even know them, but knew when to get them out of there. There was a group of us- looking out for drunk girls was what we did.
One of the most depressing volunteer jobs that I did was with the college rape crisis hotline. Lasted a semester.
Bottom line
I believe Dr. Ford.
MagdaInBlack
@WaterGirl:
Besides the cold hard anger, I am feeling a bone deep sadness over this, as if I were watching someone I love die.
That sound you keep hearing? That’s your /our last illusions shattering.
Lizzy L
Thank you, John.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was in a fraternity with a boatload of lacrosse players, and we never raped anyone either. But there was a boatload of boorish behavior that I don’t see at fraternity parties when I’m back for alumni weekends. I think we are making progress, but we will go many steps backwards if this fuckwad gets on SCOTUS.
MagdaInBlack
John, you’re a good man. You had a phase, you did not make it a career.
I’ve grown quite fond of you, your critters and your rants. ?
jacy
You know what I hate about this whole thing? The constant feeling of fight-or-flight. It’s exhausting. And I go to therapy every week and am on two mood-fixing drugs, with ativan if I get panicky. I’ve gone from brutal insomnia (4 hours of sleep every three days) to stupor (16 hours of sleep at a time). LIFE IS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS.
Elizabelle
@geg6: Counseling could be good. And lots and lots of John, Koda and Lovey time. They have your back.
Aleta
Honest stories from someone who used to be in an anti-female (/anti-gay) culture are right up there with the other important work to prevent its damage.
It also heals when you talk about that, by ending the denial of harm. Our refusal to listen to and acknowledge what women say about assault (for at least 100 years) is like punching someone’s arm or gut in the exact place where they got punched yesterday. And then doing it again the next day. The nerves register the pain of the assault even more intensely.
Something that stands out John is how your writing acknowledges the intelligence of women’s words, and anger. You don’t pretend you’re smarter or above it.
Dan B
@stinger: I believe guys like Kavanaugh want to live in the hlory dsys of high school for the rest of their lives and want the rest of us to suffer in high school for their entertainment. He must have hated the Ken Starr period because there was no moment of glorious conquer.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer:
Yup, full stop.
So much of the wingnuttery in the Trumpov era has gotten so incredibly off the rails, I don’t even waste time reviewing arguments with fellow libs or point-by-point rebuttals with wingnuts. The shit the wingnuts throw out there is so prima facie absurd (PFA) that, well, that’s just what I tell them – “your BS is absurd on its face, so we’re done here and you know it.”
Like arming classroom teachers with guns, or giving huge tax cuts to rich people in a good economy. PFA.
MomSense
@zhena gogolia:
Me too. I need to do some self care. This whole thing is taking me back to some terrible times in my life and I don’t want to get swallowed up by it.
TenguPhule
@jacy:
Welcome to the Darkest Timeline.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sorry to have thought you were a Beta!
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal:
You’re missing a soft sign!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I was waiting for you to pop up. I think progress is being made as well. Everything I have seen of Kav, I would have voted no on him as a pledge. Creepy fuck.
Mary G
@Kay (not the front-pager): It’s an old saying – men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them.
I went to exactly one frat party in college because the first one I went to was at DKE and a couple of guys literally carried me up the stairs and into a bedroom the second I came through the front door before I could find the women I was supposed to meet. I was lucky to have had honorary older brothers who were Marines, and they were drunk and I was not, so I escaped easily enough with only bruises. It did not at all occur to me to report it to anyone. It wasn’t a big deal, sororities were trying to get me to join because they needed a scholarship girl to look inclusive and do their homework, and I turned it down without a thought, but I got queasy going into the row even in the daytime and would go out of my way two or three blocks if I was on foot. I am much more outraged and angry for that 16-year-old me than she ever was.
I don’t know if it was here or some other blog, but someone posted years back a question about what’s the big deal about grabbing asses on waitresses in bars – everybody does it and they don’t complain, and I wrote a 10,000 word rant about how fucked up that was then deleted it because I was fairly new to the internet and was afraid of being banned for being a scolding prude.
But things will never change unless we step up and speak as Christine Blasey Ford has. The fact that the men haven’t succeeded in what they were trying to do has nothing at all to do with it. It’s learning that people that are physiologically stronger than you are will try to manhandle you and rip your clothes off if they feel like it. For the rest of your life you can’t go anywhere alone without worrying about someone doing it again and succeeding. That is so hurtful. You try to travel in packs with other women instead of alone, so even going somewhere involves arranging. Waitresses who get off earlier will hang around the bar waiting for ones who get off later, because guys who grab asses in the bar also feel entitled to grab you in the parking lot and do a lot more, so you have to stick together even if it means missing your favorite TV show.
Bar employees laugh and don’t complain about having their ass grabbed or their boobs honked because either their boss will fire them the minute they do, or all the customers will sit in someone else’s section glowering at them and they will not get any tips or make the boss any money and they’ll be fired within the week and how can they buy diapers and Cherrios for their kids if they don’t have an income?
It’s so fucking exhausting and you do it even when you’re old and fat because it’s not about sex, it’s about control.
So thanks for this, John, The best thing about feeling all these old incidents come up and being constantly enraged is that it seems a very few men get it. But every time some man says “I’ve never seen anything like that” or “I had no idea,” I want to find them and kill them. It’s been right in front of your eyes and you have been trained not to see. “Why didn’t my wife say anything?” is another headbanger.
Why yes, I am triggered as fuck by Republicans this week and want them all to DIAF.
TenguPhule
@Steve in the ATL:
And just think about what will happen to the reputation of the legal profession.
WaterGirl
@Dan B: LOL. We could surely apply a Cole rating system to his venting posts.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: I will live. Our house faced west for tanning purposes.
Josie
Eemom is right. There is a difference. The young man who pushed me down, groped me, and tore my dress stopped when I screamed. He did not put his hand over my mouth. An action like that makes it a different kettle of fish.
John Cole, you are a good guy to write this. It can’t have been easy. I would be proud to have a son like you.
TenguPhule
@Mary G:
Come sit be me. I may need a bigger couch.
TenguPhule
@TenguPhule: by!
PPCLI
In the midst of discouraging events, it’s important to keep touch with whatever small pleasures you can find. So I would like to remind us all of at least some good news today. When Trump rolled out his usual bullshit boasts to the UN general assembly, they openly laughed at him.
WaterGirl
@MagdaInBlack:
Earlier this evening, I was trying to find words for exactly that.
That’s where the crushing part of the anger / pain / rage comes from. This is so much lower than any behavior I could have imagined. Even in my (literal) shock in the weeks after Trump was elected, I could never imagined this.
Steve in the ATL
@TenguPhule: I was just saying to my daughter over dinner!
Tata
Thank you, John. Your capacity for learning and evolving is reassuring.
If you talk with women, they have conditioned ideas about what constitutes rape, sexual assault or harassment. If you talk with them about what is and is not okay, you can see in their eyes they remember incidents they hadn’t accepted were violations. These are difficult conversations. The thing you learn is that every woman has a story and most of us have many.
BlueGirlFromWyo
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I was part of the late 80s-90s Greek culture and I could’ve been one of those interviewees. Like many of you, this week has brought back bad memories. John, your post has been heartbreaking, redemptive, and cathartic. Thank you.
Wapiti
@Omnes Omnibus: I got to Fort Lewis, WA in 1984. We had “dancers” in the O-Club on Tuesdays and Fridays, iirc. I may have been a clueless lieutenant and male, but even then I could recognize a hostile environments for female officers. By 1986 I think They decided that wasn’t the best plan ever.
Steve in the ATL
@zhena gogolia: I was, thank you very much, but not at LU
WaterGirl
@jacy: Have you tried CBD oil? I tried some in chocolate in the run-up to my root canal, and it has really made a difference. I eat a CBD chocolate square every day and I would swear by it now.
I took ativan for the root canal procedure, and it’s nothing like that. I just feel happier and calmer and like a lighter younger version of myself. Until this Rapist Juror and his confederates decided that it’s worth tormenting and abusing a woman in order to get their man on the SC.
Still, I can only imagine how I would feel without it. If I take it at bedtime I sleep better and longer but if I take it during the day I think my day goes better.
Steve in the ATL
Is there any DKE chapter anywhere that doesn’t have that same reputation? I’ve never heard of one that wasn’t effing nuts.
Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ
@MomSense: @schrodingers_cat: @zhena gogolia:. I am struggling this week like all of you. And John’s post made me cry for some reason. But it was a good cry.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Aarrgghh! So envious! But happy for you, Dorothy!
Dan B
@geg6: It hurts to hear of your pain and distress. I’m struggling with depression, the kind I haven’t felt since AIDS. I wish there was a more robust presence of the women’s movement but it seems like it would be good to include consciousness raising and heart groups to deal with the feelings. It would be a good compliment to the activism. At least I’m not noticing much of that here.
Laurabbey
Thank you for this,,,this has brought up more than I was willing to admit. You are a good man.
WaterGirl
@geg6: Please don’t fault yourself for paying attention. There is so much at stake; it’s hard for any thinking/feeling/caring person to look away, even without having gone through what you have.
Who was it that tore up their carpet this weekend only to find a urine soaked carpet pad stuck to stained hardwood floors she hoped would turn out to be a beautiful hardwood floor? That’s the perfect metaphor for what we’re living through with this.
By Friday, for good or for bad, it sounds like we will find out whether there is any hope for the floor or whether we will be living with the disgusting floor that has been uncovered.
I’m really proud of the Harvard students and the Harvard Faculty who have been shamed by their association with this man and Tiger Mom and want to start changing things.
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: PS hardwood floor person: I have high hopes for your floors after sanding and refinishing. :-)
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: You were a Beta? Like I said, I liked our legacy Betas. I went to a Violent Femmes concert with one in London in ’84. Both in khakis, him in pink shirt gray sweater. Me in white and Navy. The punks trusted our accents and our knowing Milwaukee. Otherwise, we were posh blots on the pavement.
Immanentize
I have lived many if your posts over many years. But this is the best post ever. Your best post possible. It is modeling the way out of a juvenile past — how one should approach their own lives with critical humility. You are one solid dude, Mr. Cole.
rikyrah
Anyone watch Manifest?
chopper
this post is why you are a good
person, john cole.
even back in the bush years when it seemed like you were a super douchey republican, we knew you were good people in there somewhere. we knew it.
BlueGirlFromWyo
@rikyrah: I volunteered with a rape crisis hotline after college. Got followed to my training by a man I had given directions, to a subway stop in the opposite direction. After training, I got a call every single shift from a man who got off on claiming he’d had relations with various female relatives. I didn’t last long either. I too believe Dr. Ford.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: At UCLA the Beta’s had the sheep.
rikyrah
Good post, Cole
patrick II
I have read Trump is using the Rosenstein meeting as a distraction from the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing. I think it may be the other way around. They are taking the opportunity of the Ford/Kavanaugh hearing to dilute coverage of the Rosenstein firing and moved the confirmation hearing up until Friday for one more day of unfocused coverage. Call me wrong on Friday (I hope you have the opportunity).
MomSense
@Mrs. D. Ranged in AZ:
Tonight I’ve been crying. Last night I was feeling so detached and numb and that’s a bad direction for me to travel. Sending hugs out to all the Jackals who are struggling – and the rest of you too.
Here’s a musical offering. yours to bear
Gelfling 545
@SenyorDave: They believe he did it. They KNOW he did it. They don’t care.
Corner Stone
@rikyrah: I DVR’d it to maybe watch tonight or sometime soon. I think it’s gonna jump the shark fast but I like the concept.
Timurid
I was a try hard jerk in high school, because I was a nerd, an introvert and in the closet. I did and said a lot of vulgar things to be one of the guys. But I never put my hands on anybody, and I never wanted to. I do have something deep and dark to admit… I am a Georgetown Prep alum (albeit one of its least successful and influential ones). Kavanaugh, Judge and friends were three years ahead of me and more than several ranks above me in the social pecking order, so I can’t offer anything about their character or behavior. They were some of the most popular kids on campus and considered to be “going places.”
Prep was full of rich, entitled kids, no doubt. Booze and drugs were everywhere, and not just in the hands of the students. A number of the teachers and prefects, both Jesuits and laypeople, were notorious drunks. The faculty were all very good at their jobs, but many of them had serious skeletons in their closets… there was a real “Dirty Dozen’ vibe. I don’t know if this was by design, to get talented staff on the cheap. The most serious crime I knew of by students was a small group bringing in and selling steroids (I found out after they were caught). I was never invited to the kind of parties described in the Kavanaugh stories. My social life mainly consisted of getting drunk and stoned at a series of raging sausage fests…
geg6
@WaterGirl:
I’ll get through it. I have gotten this far and I’ll find my anger again. Right now, I’m feeling defeated. I’m going to call my counselor and make an appointment. It’s been a decade since I last felt the need. She’s still practicing and her office is a mile or so from from both work and home, so I see her and wave now and again. I just need to find my anger again and feel able to fight. She knows this is what I need and a talk with her will do me wonders.
silvery
Thanks for your honesty and introspection John. I agree with your viewpoint on closure. Speaking as a trauma victim and a woman, some f*cking accountability for Kavanaugh and such men would be sure be nice. I’d take that over closure any day of the week.
TS (the original)
@rikyrah:
I had a sober friend like you – twice she got me home safely. You may not hear from the girls you helped – but they will remember you with much kindness.
Miss Bianca
@geg6: I am so sorry. I am feeling triggered by all this too – and my experiences were nothing like yours – just a little light assault, hey!
So I can’t even imagine how hard this must be for you. : (
*virtual hugs*
chris
Well said, John Cole, I felt every word.
Sandia Blanca
This nation’s going to need a Truth and Reconciliation process like the one they used in South Africa. And John Cole, you are like a one-man T&R Commission for your own life. As others have stated above, that’s why we love you.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@Immanentize:
Beautifully put, Imm. Cosign every word. This. Upvote. Come sit by me.
I hope the Immp realises what a lucky kid he is to have you as a parent (I expect your Julie had much to do with it too). If he doesn’t now, entirely, he will soon enough.
This Balloon Juice place. It’s a good place.
Dan B
@WaterGirl: Especially if we get to vote on it! Of course there will be jackals who will insist on Cole 11…. sigh.
Today’s post is a Cole +++. Numbers not necessary.
Another Scott
@PPCLI: And Barack Obama still has around twice as many Twitter followers as Twitler does, also too.
Cheers,
Scott.
seaboogie
Great post, John. I truly appreciate your honesty and accountability. Question: I know that you have been greatly involved with supporting your former fraternity with your current students (Christion era class), so how has your fraternity changed over the years since you were a member, and what is the current culture like?
Dan B
@PPCLI: Yes! Laughter is the best medicine even though the UN would have been very nicely improved with some strong disenfectant… and strong anaesthesia, etc. Am hoping for some good monologues tonight.
SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal
@geg6:
In the midst of reading/commenting on this thread, I got a phone call from a (female) friend who was having 33-year-old memories of gang rape triggered by the news of the last few days. She has buried it all these decades. Never said a word. I am begging, pleading, imploring her to seek professional counseling/therapy. I can listen sympathetically, but she needs someone trained. Am feeling remarkably helpless right now.
daryljfontaine
@TenguPhule:
Gonna need an auditorium at the rate things are going.
D
Another Scott
@patrick II: If RR is actually meeting with Donnie, then his job is secure. Donnie is a coward and can’t fire anyone himself. We know that.
Otherwise, who knows…
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
@Sandia Blanca:
So true, and it has been suggested here before. I think the best we’re going to get is Dem subpoenas and hearings, with Rs angrily denying everything/claiming “both sides!”, but it will have to be enough. It ALL has to be aired. Everything down to Ben Carson’s stupid ineffective patronage-laden time at HUD (and we’ll know we’re getting close to the end of the Reconciliation when we get that far down the priority list, believe me!)
But it all starts when we romp their sorry asses in November. Pedal to the metal, peeps!
zhena gogolia
Powerful piece by Padma Lakshmi
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/25/opinion/padma-lakshmi-sexual-assault-rape.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fopinion&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront
New York Times link.
Jeffro
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal: SD, ask her to call RAINN – the Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network at 1-800-656-473. Someone is there 24/7 and will help her.
Jeffro
@Jeffro: Oh, FFS, mods plz help
Dan B
@WaterGirl: I don’t know why this thought popped into my head regarding you comment about illusions being shattered and being discouraged but I immediately remembered the week (or two) when the mafia took out a contract on us ( Chicago Gay Liberation – all 16 strong 20 year olds). Then the police Vice Squad sent 200 paddy wagons to our dance. It was so fast there wasn’t time to be discouraged. We cried as a group afterwards when we succeeded. This big slow national crisis is harder to process but I try to remember the times I’ve survived.
Mnemosyne
Since a lot of the regulars are expressing that they’re getting insanely stressed out by this whole thing, I’m going to post a link to the national rape and abuse hotline’s website:
https://www.rainn.org
They have a phone number you can call. They have live chat if you’re more comfortable with that. They have links to local resources. They help people of all genders who need help. If you’re feeling stressed by this avalanche of bullshit, they want to help you.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
Everything you say about this fucking fuckity fucker is true. And his asshole enablers in Congress. No quarter when we win in November. Hang em all…high. I’m generally opposed to the death penalty, but for this crew I’ll allow it.
marv
Ok – look – I don’t want to overshare, but I was an athlete at a prestigious university back in the day, about ten years before Kavanaugh, and I drank too much, and was hetero, and if the guy really was a virgin after college, let alone high school, I’m not making any value judgments but it’s pretty frigging weird.
Rand Careaga
@zhena gogolia:
This is a little tangential to the immediate topic, except as it regards life among the privileged. Early in the present decade, through an unlikely and never-to-be-repeated chain of circumstances, my wife and I were among 200 guests at a party in Beverly Hills. Few of you would recognize the family name; all of you would recognize the “brand” that’s the basis of my hosts’ fortune.
The house was vast and decorated with more restraint than I would have expected. On the other hand, the party was rather less buttoned-down than I’d been prepared for (cameras and cell phones were politely parted from us at the door. Scantily-clad go-go dancers. Scantily-clad go-go dancing dwarves. And on each of the two long buffet tables, a human centerpiece: a young woman clad only in body paint. “Swell party,” said I to one, as I fetched a canapé from near her inner thigh, “but I’d hate to be caught out here when the revolution comes.” “I’m with the revolution,” she replied with pardonable dryness. “I’ll put in a good word for you.”
I won’t say that I didn’t enjoy the party, but the sybaritic atmosphere was off-putting to this suburban-bred barbarian. If bearded guerrillas in fatigues had crashed the festivities, it would have felt oddly appropriate—and just.
Immanentize
I have represented a bunch of guys charged with sexual assault/rape, and I of course knew about many times that number that were handled by colleagues or friends. A few things I have been thinking about:
First, in no case I ever knew about did I hear tell or believe the claim that sex (or the sexual act even if not involving penetration) did not happen. In every case, the allegations of what happened might have been slightly exaggerated, but generally the telling was spot on. It’s just too hard to make that crap up.
Two: I have been wracking my brain and I can only think of one case — ONE! — where I was convinced the complaining witness was lying about the question whether the sex was consensual. It’s a long story, but it was a question about a box dancer having sex with a customer and her boyfriend finding out. It was not my case.
Three: I tried a number of ID cases — stranger rape cases and I know that victims don’t always get the ID right. In one case, the state’s own forensic evidence proved that my client wasn’t guilty, but the tried it anyway because they had a victim who was absolutely certain that my client was the perp. He wasn’t. But that was in a stranger rape case!
I never tried a sexual assault case where the victim and the defendant knew eachother on any theory but consent. I once had a case where we presented an “I did it and I’m sorry” defense because the client who was drunk and stoned thought the drunk and stoned girlfriend of his drunk and stoned friend wanted to have sex with him but — she really didn’t.
So, what does this lead me to? Dr. Blasey Ford was certainly piled upon by two men she knew and she has no reason at all to make up this assault and no one of any stripe is suggesting she did. She knew her assailants so there is no serious ID issue. None. And no one is suggesting she consented (even like, “she said it was OK, then decided it wasn’t so we stopped’).
There would be plenty to work with if this were a criminal trial and BK were facing life in prison. But it’s not. And by all my knowledge and all my experience, her saying he did it is plenty of proof that he did, especially in light of no real challenge to those facts.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: Not only did I free it, I’ve emailed it directly to her.
Aleta
@marv: Maybe the hearing questions should pin him down about how he defines virgin. Maybe review those questions he wrote for Starr ahead of time. “Would it be a lie if someone said he was a virgin but he …”
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne: RAIIN is a great resource. It also has excellent current stats about sexual assault which I handed out to my students so they wouldn’t be stupid (and hopefully not say stupid things)
geg6
@SiubhanDuinne, Badass Jackal:
OMG, I’m so sorry this happened to her and that this is dragging it up. She must find someone to talk to. I found mine through work (we have an employee helpline that makes referrals) when my ex and I broke up, which was quite the trauma to me, a trauma that dragged up all my other traumas. She was great with me, totally got who I was and where I was coming from. She mostly just listened, with some gentle guidance sprinkled in. She understood that I am someone who needs to be a little outraged by injustice to be my best. I feel defeat and failure very deeply. It sends me into a tailspin. She can help him talk myself back into my stronger self.
hueyplong
@geg6: You hang in there. You have an asshole’s vote to cancel out on November 6. Don’t let that guy win like he did last time.
geg6
@geg6:
Damn, missing edit button! Not “him” in the above last sentence. I meant “me.”
jacy
@Immanentize:
One of the terrible things (among all the terrible things), is that the Republicans and Kavanaugh-apologists keep talking about “no evidence,” with no acknowledgement that an accusation IS evidence. Sometimes it’s the only evidence you get. And not just for rape or sexual assault, but for other crimes. Doesn’t mean it’s incontrovertible evidence, but it’s fucking evidence, to be looked at and evaluated.
Immanentize
One last comment before I fall asleep — it is a HUGE tactical error to get a sexual assault prosecutor to do the questioning. They only have one questioning style — sarcastic/incredulous. They really should have found a great defense attorney. Good defense attorneys are tremendously kind and careful when questioning victims. Maybe because their clients are often victims of crime one day and perletratots the next. They understand the issues far better than prosecutors who can be very self-righteous (think Marsha Clark). I guess we shall see.
Steve in the ATL
@Rand Careaga: I KNEW I’d met you before the SanFran meetup!
Mnemosyne
@Jeffro:
@Adam L Silverman:
Phone number is slightly wrong: 1-800-656-4673
It might be good for a front-pager to do a post with RAINN’s information. If our regulars are this stressed out, the lurkers are, too.
Immanentize
@jacy: this has been driving me crazy for days. It is not only an accusation — it is friggin testimony about the facts regarding the crime. It is evidence! Eye witness testimony! And many people are serving long sentences on less evidence than that we already know about from Dr. Ford.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
I heard “Arizona county prosecutor” and wondered if she was the prosecutor for Maricopa County, where Arpaio ordered his sheriffs to not investigate sexual assault cases if the victims were Latinx. ‘Cause that would bite her on the ass in a big way.
Aleta
@Dan B: Thanks for your perspective. @Immanentize: ‘ ‘
oldgold
@Aleta:
How is that going to happen?
Grassley announced this evening that each Democratic Senator will be given only 5 minutes for questioning. This is an effing farce. No, it doesn’t even rise to that level.
The Democratic Senators should refuse to participate.
PaulWartenberg
One of the biggest reasons I never joined a fraternity when I went to the University of Florida is that I did not want to join that kind of environment: the kind of drunken, bullying, sexist and queerfearing, hazing hivemind of crass behavior. Even when there were degree-associated frats available – the Journalism fraternity was a possibility, I can’t recall which one it was at UF – I was terrified I was going to sign up for a culture of abuse either on myself or on others.
To anyone who grew up in an upper-income community, rich white suburbs, and gone to college dominated by fraternity politics and culture, you’ve seen the likes of Kavanaugh and his ilk. It’s been decades if not centuries in the making. And we’ve seen it so much in film, in music, in the popular mindset. Why are we so surprised when the mask of civility has been torn away to expose the elite for the drunken women-hating bastards that they are?
Mnemosyne
@oldgold:
I’m used to you spouting bad advice but, holy Christ, this is your worst yet. The Democrats have a former prosecutor/attorney general on their team and you think they shouldn’t even show up? WTF kind of moron are you?
The other 9 Democrats need to memorize the following phrase: “I cede my time to Senator Harris.”
Gretchen
Thank you for this, John. That’s why we love you. You can think about how a person should be, and how you should go to get there. That’s the best of humanity.
If Kav were capable of writing – I was a jerk as a teen, I drank too much and did some thing I’m ashamed of, and I hope anyone I hurt can forgive me – We wouldn’t be in this position. He’s not capable of doing that – he’s insisting he’s a choir boy, anyone who says he wasn’t in smearing his fine good name, and the women are liars. We know he’s scum, drunk or sober (see the Starr investigation) and he has zero ability to examine himself.
Another Scott
@Immanentize: From Chery’s Twitter feed:
As you say, I guess we’ll see.
Strength to Dr. Blasey.
Cheers,
Scott.
khead
@Mnemosyne:
Very nice.
Also, pretty sure that’s a young Gary Busey in the first pic of the post.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Cheryl.
My kingdom for an Edit function!
Cheers,
Scott.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman: Thank you good sir.
Gretchen
I picked up my grandson from preschool today. He told me that the teachers said the kids have to ask permission before touching them (Sometimes his hugs are a little too enthusiastic). I agreed that sometimes people don’t want to be touched and we have to keep that in mind. He solemnly agreed that we need to keep that in mind. He’s 4. I’m thinking the teachers are responding to current news, but if the little boys are learning this from preschool on, we should be ahead of the game when they are older.
Sandia Blanca
@Jeffro: Right you are, Jeffro!
jacy
@Immanentize:
Yeah, I’d be curious to know how many people in the history of the USA have been executed on just as much evidence. GAAAAAHHHHHH
Gretchen
@Mnemosyne: yes, that’s where she’s from.
jacy
@Mnemosyne:
BINGO! You win the big stuffed whatchamacallit. See the bursar for your prize.
Gretchen
@Mnemosyne: that’s what I was thinking! Give all the time to Harris.
Jay
@marv:
Special K is pleading a technicality,
Multiple violent gang rapes arn’t sex.
Sex happens befween two consenting adults.
John,
Thank you for your post.
Adam L Silverman
@Jeffro: I actually just turned it into a front page post. I’ll get ahold of John or Alain to pin it for a while.
MoxieM
Thank you John; thank you all. Been really sick the last couple of days, and I have no doubt it’s being brought on by all this stuff (stress & trauma-induced illness, blah blah). Reading you all is a way better feeling.
Karen
If the GOP’s mind is already made up, is the hearing just a way to rub Dr. Ford’s face in her pain?
Mnemosyne
@Karen:
They’re hoping to be able to publicly discredit her while piously claiming that they gave her a chance to tell her story.
I think it’s going to blow up in their faces, but that’s their plan.
Adam L Silverman
@Mnemosyne: Already done. Was putting it together when you were typing your comment.
Tehanu
I agree with what practically everybody else in this thread said. You’re a good man, John, and this was an act of courage.
Jay
@Karen:
The ReThugs have and have always had the votes to push Serial Violent Gang Rapist Special K out of Commitee.
They don’t have the votes in the Senate to confirm him.
They are “allowing” ( fucking privledged scumbags) Dr. Ford the briefest moment to testify, with as little opportunity to cross, and with a Kapo Female conducting the cross, to:
pathetically attempt to manage the bad optics for the Fauxified,
create the illusion that process was followed, to get the ReThugs concerned about process onboard,
create the illusion that “well, she was heard, it wasn’t compelling”,
Then have violent serial gang Rapist Special K deny it all and claim innocent virgin status.
oldgold
@Gretchen:
If Senator Harris was Perry Mason on steroids, 50 minutes would not allow her to come close to properly examining Cavanaugh.
If you participate, you lend credibility to this cynical affront to the search for truth.
Genine Tyson
Thanks for sharing this, John. It means a lot.
frosty
@Schlemazel: I was the same as you. Hated those smooth assholes.
Emma
@TenguPhule: You need a ten thousand seat amphitheater.
Aleta
@oldgold: I wrote in anger; they’re doing everything they can to shield their boy.
I don’t know how the Republican sex crimes prosecutor came about. Did Dr. Ford and attnys agree or have no say?
WaterGirl
@geg6: Glad you have someone to talk to. These bastards have a lot to answer for.
Aleta
@Immanentize: Do you mean it’s a tactical error for the Republicans?
oldgold
@Aleta:
This was strictly a GOP operation.
I think the severe time constraints are more of an affront to due process than the GOP assigning their questioning to outside counsel.
oldgold
@Immanentize:
It is probably a play for Flake’s vote.
Mnemosyne
@oldgold:
So the Democrats convince Dr. Blasey Ford to testify, drag her all the way across the country to do it, and then abandon her to be grilled by the Republicans’ pet prosecutor on live TV with zero defense or rebuttal?
Yeah. That’s a great strategy if you want to completely fucking ruin Dr. Blasey Ford’s life along with any claim the Demcorats had of supporting victims of sexual assault. Great strategy, dumbfuck.
Jay
@Aleta:
No say.
Mart
Thanks for the post John. This would not be a huge story, except most everyone has personnel experience with this shit. I hung with my fair share of alpha Kav’s and Judge’s. I never went where they went, but I rarely objected when I saw it coming. Once I stopped a woman from a potential “train” rape. She was hammered and did not understand why all the assholes in the room were only wearing towels around their waists. I got a few weeks of Mart is in love with the slut brilliance, and hay-makers to the shoulder. Wish I was stronger, did more to stop the less severe acts of sexual assault.
With my daughters in college found the same shit goes on, updated with date rape pills. With all the harm this SC shitheal will bring to women, I hope he helps to change the culture, and makes the good voices strong. And places the assaulter(s) in prison.
Jay
@oldgold:
50 minutes with supporting testimony from the victim is more than enough time for many convictions,
and all Harris has to do is dirty up Special K.
On Friday 9:30 am, the vote drops.
On Friday, 10 am, Dr. Ford lays a criminal complaint in Maryland.
At 11 am and drip, drip, drip Avenetti’s clients lay criminal complaints.
WaterGirl
I’m confused. Do we now know, or think we know, who will be doing the questioning at Thursday’s hearing? Or is this speculation based on tidbits of information from here or there?
Aleta
Today another Yale classmate, saying something …
He’s an Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery at UNM
oldgold
@Mnemosyne:
I am expressing my opinions. If you disagree with me, that is fine. Your the vulgar ad hominem attacks are not productive.
I would encourage Dr. Ford not to participate and arrange an alternative high profile venue for her to tell her story.
Jay
@WaterGirl:
Rumours so far, a Female Sexual Assault Prosecutor from Arizona will be the substitute Kapo for the Rethugs on the Commitee.
Kay (not the front-pager)
@Mary G: Yeah. It took me awhile to respond to you, and you may have moved on by now. While I’ve faced what most women have, I’ve been incredibly fortunate not to have suffered extensive trauma. I’ve read the “Men are afraid women will laugh at them, women are afraid men will kill them” several times lately, and I couldn’t agree more. I think it was an early understanding of that fact that protected me. So I protected myself by limiting my exposure. Which means I limited my experiences, and lived with low-level fear. Not that that prevented my being betrayed by men I thought I could trust, but it meant I was always able to escape. That and pure dumb luck. And working in a battered women’s shelter made me feel like I had dodged a bullet. I know what women have to go through, deal with just to live.
But even though I was never actually raped, I had to fight my way out of enough situations. I thought that was OK because I won, right? Maybe not so much. Like so many women, I’m remembering a lot of those fights this week. For me the fear is like nothing, just my normal background. But the betrayal. That’s what I’m snagged on. Why did so many men I should have counted on, been able to trust, have to betray me?
oldgold
@Jay:
No, 50 minutes is not enough time.
Cavanaugh is sharp and experienced. He will chew up the time with long-winded non- answers. Grassley, who has the gavel, will not police Cavanaugh’s filibustering.
Aleta
@Mart: I think every time someone says something or stops someone, it changes the culture a little, and helps more than a few people indirectly or directly.
These weeks have already changed the course of some lives. Changed the course of some frat parties this year too I hope.
It’s good that it’s happening at the start of the school year and that college campuses are already protesting.
Jay
@oldgold:
Don’t count on it.
oldgold
@Jay:
Jay, I do agree that 50 minutes of direct examination of Dr. Ford by Senator Harris might be adequate.
Unfortunately, that too is going to be compromised as a result of the GOP counsel getting the first bite of the apple.
Trying to do effective direct on the second bite is damn tough.
oldgold
@Jay:
Believe me, I am hoping I am wrong!
Sometimes things do not go as planned.
This is a fast moving story and things could change over the next 24 hours.
Jay
@oldgold:
It all hangs on what the Democrats have “in the bag” and how they want to play it.
We know how the Commitee will vote, Friday a 9:30 am, barring new explosions.
Then it’s up to the victims and their lawyers, on how they want to play it out,
And Merrek Garland on the DC Circuit.
Quite a few US Judges only had their seats pulled after lenghty absences due to Jail.
Mnemosyne
@oldgold:
If you think that telling you that the strategy you’re coming up with would be disastrously counterproductive and actually help the Republicans shove Kavanaugh to a successful vote is an “ad hominem,” you may need a new dictionary.
Death Panel Truck
@TenguPhule:
Yep. Like Blondi did.
Sister Golden Bear
Thank you, Cole.
HeartlandLiberal
As usual, John Cole, your commentary should be on the front page of the NYTimes and WashPoo newspapers.
You speak truth, and cut to the chase every time. If nothing else, this episode has made clear the complete and utterly venal evil of members of the GOP, who literally represent nothing but lust for power, and contempt for women any one who is not a white, privileged male. Why any woman can vote for the GOP I will never understand. Although I have heard of this thing called the Stockholm syndrome, which may help. And then I have studied why women remain with husbands who abuse them, I think the syndrome of fear and powerlessness plays a role, too.
TerryC
Cole, thank you. I have other faults but thankfully I have never been that kind of male. I made it through five years in the navy, for example, without drinking or tattoos.
In the late 1970s at the University of Michigan Law School there was an informal group of those guys who called themselves the TCAs, either for Tomorrow’s Corporate Attorneys or Tight Clique of Assholes, depending. Some of them were the major source of weed in the school, Acapulco Gold, I believe. Because I had some responsibility for the residence hall at that time, I ran across them and up against them often – and heard from their girlfriends and others. I sort of became their nemesis and in one incident went to thr basement and turned the power to their rooms off.
Sick puppies, whose last attack on the day of graduation was the distribution of a truly disgusting letter, purporting to be from me, with my signature forged, put into the mailboxes of each professor and around the quad.
Not gonna share story details as we have all been reading too much of that.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jeffro:
Many thanks, Jeffo. I’ve passed the info along.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Autocorrect kept changing “Jeffro” to “Jeffrey,” and I kept changing it but then never noticed it had changed to “Jeffo.” Sorry!
fed up with misogynists
weird how men all seem to convince THEMSELVES that their past gross behavior was wrong. The opinions of women still mean so little to the OP that he won’t even grant us agency in our own objectification.
Don’t need support from people like you. Would prefer if you never waxed political about how it’s really the Other’s problem and not yours. Please.
Waterg
@fed up with misogynists: This reads like you are talking to Cole. Is that the case, because if so, i don’t get your hostility.
Dice
@Patricia Kayden: Not in Maryland, IIRC.
Dice
@fed up with misogynists: If you’re writing to John Cole, he doesn’t blame any “Other” for his behavior, or excuse it that I could tell. Consider a med check and potential adjustment. Please.
Warren Terra
Thank you for writing this.