amphibian, on 31 October 2014 - 06:18 AM, said:
The police aren't the dramatic yet righteous problem solvers tv has built them up to be.
Going to the police means having to deal with invasive questions and tests, where there may not be obvious marks or remnants, at a time when being left alone seems like the best thing to do. Then it's a months or years long process which usually involves direct confrontation, social fallout and a ton of pressure on the victim to be the wounded angel when getting back to normal is probably the best thing to do.
I'm honestly amazed we get as many sexual assault victims complaining and obtaining formal justice as we do.
Yeah, slamming an innocent guy in the court of public opinion is bad. But enabling a system that incentivizes the silence of women in particular regarding assault and sexual assault is even worse.
I don't have the tools to accurately explain the above because I'm a large half white man in the USA. I don't have to deal with this as part of my life every single day like many women all over the world do. It's kind of life changing to realize that and start paying attention to what women have been telling us for so long: men are usually the most dangerous things in their lives and we've built ways of life that insulate men from the costs of that.
I know that a man is innocent until proven guilty. That's pretty well drilled in since childhood. That's the standard in this country, and that is as it should be. The burden of proof is on the accuser, beyond reasonable doubt, and that is as it should be. But as soon as you bring in sex, then the one thing you absolutely must do is obtain consent. Both parties need to have it. It has to be unequivocal. If you're not sure that you have it, you don't have it and you should not proceed. If the other party is not sure that he or she has given it and you should not proceed. If the other party is unable to give it due to intoxication, being too young to understand, mental incapacity, or any other situation where judgement might be impaired, you don't have it. If the other party is scared that you might beat them up or kill them if they don't comply, then it doesn't matter if they are not physically resisting, that's still rape. We
know this. Everyone but the most unrepentant sociopath gets that and understands why it has to be that way. The upshot of that is that it's up to the alleged rapist to prove that he
did obtain consent. So practically speaking, the alleged rapist is innocent until proven guilty and guilty until proven innocent at the same time. I'm no lawyer, but I'm not sure how the courts resolve that disconnect.. I'm not sure how
I resolve that disconnect. What I am hearing time and time again though is that if the case manages to make it to trial, the way it plays out is that the victim ends up having to prove that she did not consent. And from there, the deck is stacked against her. The first thing to do is always to discredit the witness or victim, and that always ends up meaning that the defence will immediately start painting her as a whore, as if that makes it ok. Something as normal as agreeing to go out on a date with someone means you must have expected they might try to sleep with you, so you must have been agreeing to getting punched in the head, violently choked, and forced to perform oral sex. Where in the real world does that actually work? Our world, apparently. I lost a little bit of sleep over it last night.
This isn't purely academic for me. I'm heading to the home of an apparently nice young man this evening. Our stated purpose is to watch a movie. If there's a little bit of a cuddle on the couch, I really won't mind at all. But if he gropes me, date's over. If he slaps me around when I tell him I'm not ready for that kind of touching, I'm getting out any way I can, but probably wouldn't head to the hospital unless I had visible, documentable injuries. If he rapes me, I probably would call the cops, after making my getaway and ensuring my own safety. But it would mostly be so they can open a file and take a statement. In my naitivete, I would probably figure that it's better to have generated a police report and end up not pressing charges than to want to press charges later and not have the police report to back it up. But you never know. I might panic, call a friend, and take a shower to clean the horrifying ick and memory of it, which is exactly the last thing you are supposed to do after an assault. Isn't it stupid that I have to worry about stuff like this, when I should be looking forward to a nice evening with the nice young man I know through a mutual hobby?
Help
they love you 100% back..kinda like a dog..not a cat
