Years ago, there was a movie. The Accused. With Jodie Foster and Kelly McKillis. Jodie’s character is gang raped in a bar while others witnessed and cheered it on. Kelly McKillis plays the ADA who is a part of the plea-bargaining (to reckless endangerment). Eventually the ADA charges the onlookers/cheerers with (something - I forget). And they are eventually convicted. It made an impression on me then that continues today.
Whenever I hear that someone who is being beaten up/raped/harassed/robbed/etc and there are onlookers who cheer it on, look the other way, and/or capture the attack via cell phone or whatever means, I think of this movie. And I think that if there are people who can stop these attacks, people who cheer them on, people who video these things, then they are just as guilty if not MORE guilty than those who perpetuate the attack.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke
Can I just offer an amen or three to @romanigypsyeyes#176? This assumption that the kids these days are doing all sorts of horrible risky things when sure, they are—just like every. other. group. of college-aged kids ever.
So why the freak-out about it now? I’d suggest that that’s probably not new, either—it just feels like it must be new because suddenly we (meaning most of us in this conversation) are of an age where we are or could be the parents of those engaging in those behaviors, which therefore makes them seem more scary than the very same behaviors we were simply a part of a couple decades ago.
For clarification, Wikipedia reports there was no crowd cheering it on with the Cheryl Arajuo rape. Two bystanders did try to intervene, but weren’t forceful enough to succeed.
Part of the crowd joined the rape and may have also cheered it on as they waited their turn @hebegebe . There were 10 people in the bar, one passed out, 2 who tried to help, her and 6 who raped her. I think the reports of dozens of men cheering was just sloppy journalism.
One set-up that I think is effective at monitoring are programs like Haverford’s Quaker Bouncers. I know it is something other colleges have looked at and a few have emulated. It’s not perfect - it only monitors group parties for example - but its a start.
“As an undergraduate at Haverford, Jeff Millman organized the Quaker Bouncers, a group that, through student fees, pays students $10.25 an hour to monitor parties in teams of two. The position has only two requirements: first, a four-hour training session in which, among other things, the student talks to EMTs and learns what to do when a person might have alcohol poisoning; second, the student must be 100-percent sober while on the job.”
How does that change the culture, though? It just provides a backstop so no one dies.
It would be analogous to- if my loved one periodically got drunk and got behind the wheel of a car, and I paid for a hotel room so he could sleep it off, or a chauffeur to get him home without getting behind the wheel. Ok, it prevents disaster, but doesn’t seem to address the root issue.
However, if all of the women at a party are difficult victims, a sexual predator looking for easy victims among the women at the party may be unsuccessful at raping any of them. Or he may still attempt rape or related crime (e.g. putting date rape drugs in someone else’s drink) and get caught without succeeding in raping anyone.
Well, in the immortal words of Billy Currington, “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy.”
Minus the God part for some people, I think it’s loosely applicable. Beer (or any alcohol) is a strong beverage, and is apparently enjoyable to consume. It can be used to loosen one’s inhibitions and should be used wisely. No one deserves to be raped for drinking a beverage.
And the problem with proof by anecdote is that there are plenty of counter-anecdotes available.
It’s better, really, to look at overall patterns rather than say “Hey, here’s this one time something happened, and so we must base our entire policy on that because it fits the narrative I prefer”—there’s a lot of danger in that approach.
It wasn’t directed at you, @OHMomof2, so much as at the general tendency in discussions about topics like these to attempt to prove that something is generally the case by pointing to a single true story or two, especially a shocking one, that reflects the claimant’s preferred narrative.