He was never restricted from taking certain classes. He did have what seem to me to be onerous restrictions put on him, considering the only offense he was found guilty of was publicizing the woman’s name. It’s particularly bad because, as you say, the facts she alleged didn’t amount to a sexual assault if true.
I wonder what the backstory about Kwadwo “Kojo” Bonsu, the UMass kid, was. The University threw the book at him for what seem to be minor infractions. Why?
Bonsu is an African-American from the Baltimore area. It puts me in mind of the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates, who also grew up in Baltimore, in an entirely black neighborhood, a rough one. Coates talks movingly about how he became wary, truculent, combative, quick to take offense. In the physically dangerous streets where he lived, that attitude was adaptive. That’s what it took to survive.
Then when Coates, because of his huge talent, moved into a mostly white world, suddenly what worked in Baltimore was a disaster in the offices of the Atlantic magazine. He had to learn a new culture.
I wonder if there was a culture clash between Bonsu and UMass. I wonder if Bonsu’s understandable reaction to being falsely accused caused him to alienate the administration, and then things kept escalating. An angry, combative reaction probably wouldn’t play well.
A white middle class guy from suburban New Jersey probably would have known better how to navigate the process. Or at least would have had expensive lawyers to shepherd him through the process.
It saddens me that these types of threads always turn into a handful of posters focusing on the very small percentage of false accusations (which occur for any type of crime, right? Even on death row) while ignoring the true incidents/attacks which greatly outnumber them, where victims often don’t get believed or get any justice. Why is that?
“Maybe if you’re Wilt Chamberlain.”
To college aged students with decently healthy libidos that are in a relationship and in close proximity to each other won’t have issues using the Costco sized box. One of the reasons why they should be using condoms in the first place.
I’d like to see those Costco condom couples using a more reliable form of birth control, preferably something long lasting.
That is blaming the victim. It’s the platonic ideal of blaming the victim. It’s prototypical victim blaming. When other kinds of blaming of rape victims happen, someone is sure to say sarcastically, “What was she wearing?” because we know that victim blamers bring up the woman’s, or girl’s, or boy’s clothing. There are entire art exhibits about what rape victims were wearing, to point out how offensive and irrelevant the question is.
https://woub.org/2018/09/04/what-were-you-wearing-exhibition-spotlights-survivors-stories/
What is the evidence that “dressing like prostitutes” makes one an easier victim or preferred target (as opposed to being the subject of bias in subsequent investigations and court proceedings)? Also, is there an agreed definition of what “dressing like prostitutes” means in this context?
Have you ever noticed that it’s never the guy’s fault?
When women are victims of rape, it’s all “Why did she drink so much, why did she go in his room” and of course the old chestnut “Why did she dress like that?” “Don’t they know they might be raped,” we hear over and over. It’s her fault she was raped. She should have taken precautions.
But when guys are victims of false accusations, have you ever heard, “Why did he drink so much? Why did he have her in his room? Didn’t he know he might be the victim of a false allegation?” Never. Never hear that. It’s never the guy’s fault. He doesn’t have to change his life in any way, doesn’t have to take precautions. Nobody ever blames him.
Moreover, we constantly are told that drinking alcohol is a risk factor for being raped. Know what else it’s a risk factor for? Raping. Alcohol lowers inhibitions and makes people more violent. And yet. When was the last time you heard, “Don’t drink too much, it might make you rape someone.” Do we hear guys being told to be responsible for watching out for the drinking of other guys, lest they rape someone? Never. Because it’s never men’s responsibility to do anything about rape.
Everyone knows what forcible rape looks like and it’s an act of violence not a sexual encounter.
We understand when helpless or semiconscious victims are brutalized by a man or multiple men.
We also understand when two people on a date or hook up may be necking and someone says enough is enough. When the culprit then continues against the victims will that is also assault or worse. Not hard to see.
The tougher and more common instances are not always so cut and dry. Many of these cases are with college students involved in a consensual and a high intensity physical and near sexual encounter. If it it less than a full stop by either party or If it post encounter regret, it’s less clear.
It still may be an encounter deemed to be illegal or enough for the school to remove one from campus.
However, to group all of these cases in the same categories as the ones listed above and to deem all to “predators” is a bridge too far.
And it makes for rash and lifetime implications in what can be either a clumsy teen encounter or simple post coital embarrassment.
It can also be easy to label all with the same brush. Which hurts the dialogue and also leads to bad decision making within college administrations. Many of these end up with significant monetary awards for the wrongly accused too.
We have to live together in society. Men and women aren’t lifetime enemies. We are all in this together. The tar and feathering at times is making me and a lot of people I know uncomfortable.
Men aren’t sitting around discussing sexual encounters or women’s physical characteristics- at least once you pass into adulthood.
What we are discussing is why it’s becoming open season on good, honest and hard working men. Toxic masculinity. Male privilege. Guilty of being the male in the situations being discussed before the facts are even known.
Men are definitely talking about avoiding one on one interactions at work. Mentorships etc. I know it’s been said you can’t notice the difference. I think it was changing and healthier work relationships and advocacy was starting to happen. That’s coming to a halt. Men do talk about being afraid of false accusations etc. and many women here may say. “Good it’s about time they paid a price”.
Remember that your dad, husband, sons
and brothers are in this group too.
Men also talk about the burdens we have and that gets lost in the noise.
It’s Memorial Day. Let’s remember the millions of men and boys who have died in battle, defending people all over the world. Police and fire. The men who went into the twin towers to save people, women included.
The coal miners. The men on oil rigs. The explorers.
Those men who travel day in and day out in some soulless sales job to help support their wives and families.
The postmen and dock workers.
The people climbing sky scrapers and building the highways in sweltering heat as you drive by on the way to work without a moment of thought or thanks about there contributions to your life.
We notice the tv shows where the husband is always the dolt and source of laugh track guffaws.
The men of Appalachia and the bayous. The men all over the world fighting it out to help their families eat.
Yes there are bad guys. There are bad ladies too. Yes there is power focused on men in society. But that power doesn’t really translate in any meaningful way to the billions of “ work-a-day Joes” who simply do what is asked of them.
We feel hurt too. We feel disillusioned. Unappreciated. It’s not that anyone really cares in general. It’s suck it up butter cup. And don’t dare to show any emotion or weakness. Yeah it’s always a real ball being a guy.
Try being a dad in divorce when children are involved. Even when the mom was the issue, it’s hard not seeing your kids. But keep sending the checks. And let’s make sure the checks are on time. And everyone loves to focus on the deadbeats.
Many guys live lives of quiet desperation too you know. It’s not always wow isn’t it great I get to be a guy again today.
Mothers, wives and women get and deserve great respect in our society. They are venerated and held up as the matriarch of the family. Their contributions are lauded and held out for recognition, rightfully so.
But there’s a lot of guys out their who do a little to help out along the way as well. You don’t hear much about it.
So when good, honest men are living hard and simple lives, it’s hard to hear so many group us all in a single, privileged and abusive group. It hurts.
And if you want to know what we are taking about when alone? It’s not what you would guess it seems from the previous posts.
It’s not about women and how we can subjugate or objectify you.
It’s about how tired we are, physically tired. How we are concerned with the way the world is moving. And it would be nice to not be the target for so much hate these days and a real longing to be respected and appreciated in our own homes. Most are just hoping to have little time in retirement to rest a little. To make sure our wives and children will be taken care of financially. Knowing full well we also get the privilege of dying many years before you. We want the women in ours lives to be protected even when we are gone.
We are dads of women. We would literally die to protect them. To think we are all so bad is frustrating. And we agree with the larger social and gender issues. But for the vast vast majority of us men.
We have nothing to do with it.
@Cardinal Fang, there is a great deal of education beginning in early childhood that one should not commit murder. Nevertheless, there are thousands of murders every year in the US. While I certainly support more education aimed at discouraging people from commiting felonies, the efficacy of those efforts seems at best uncertain, so it is prudent for potential victims to take defensive measures to decrease their personal likelihood of becoming a victim. No one doubts that the blame belongs to the felons. And we should keep on discouraging felonies and punishing felons. But until no more crimes are committed in society, sensible adults take precautions.
@privatebanker wonderful post!
Well said, private banker!
Re: #147 and #149
Seems like the issue here is that people tend to conflate “reasonable measures to reduce the risk of crime” with “not taking those measures excuses the criminal from responsibility of committing the crime”.
In the context of some other crimes, there is no confusion. For example, if you want to reduce the risk of theft, do not leave your stuff unattended and unlocked. However, if a thief steals your unattended and unlocked stuff, most people will not say that s/he is less responsible for the theft because you left it unattended and unlocked.
But this does not appear to be true for rape and sexual battery. Some people apparently take the view that a victim who is drunk or otherwise voluntarily in a high risk situation reduces the criminal’s responsibility for the crime – “blaming the victim”. Results of court proceedings may be affected by such views among judges and jurors. Apparently, that view is widespread enough that suggestion of reasonable risk reduction measures (like all of the usual ones about alcohol and parties) also gets reactions about “blaming the victim”. Of course, some people also add in dubious notions of increased risk, such as how one dresses, further inflaming the problem.
Actually, every one I know would say the theft victim often acted unreasonably in many situations. Leave your IPad at McDonald’s? Of course it will be gone in 30 minutes. Keys in the car? Same, not much sympathy there. I don’t really know when people began to think they had a right to get blackout drunk in public and assume nothing bad would happen, regardless of gender.
Shorter #148: It’s all about MEN MEN MEN MEN. Again. Women get raped, but really we should shed a tear about the men.
If you were on a jury, would you refuse to convict a suspect who beyond a reasonable doubt stole the iPad and car because the iPad was left unattended and the car had the key in it?
Similarly, if you were on a jury, would you refuse to convict a suspect who beyond a reasonable doubt raped the drunk person?
I don’t know when people said that a guy who got really drunk or high and then was falsely accused of sexual assault was at fault for getting drunk or high and putting himself in that position. Let’s see… I think it was never. Certainly there was not one peep in this thread about the UMass guy and how it was his fault for being falsely accused because he voluntarily got high and voluntarily invited the young woman, also high, into his room.
@“Cardinal Fang” That’s exactly what I’m talking about, the inability to have a pleasant conversation or understand people as a whole versus gender war.
If you read the whole post you would notice an important paragraph. Women are venerated and rightfully so. But we are in this together.
Yes sadly women are raped. And so are young men abused. And not only by men, which I can personally attest.
As a victim of abuse myself I am fully cognizant of how terrible this all. It changed everything for me. But I have learned to forgive and to not blame an entire species for the actions of a few. I judge people individually. The small number of people commuting these crimes should be dealt with harshly. The rest of us should support each other and try to understand each other without misplaced anger.
Ucbalumnus, as you know, the difference is that the issue in rape cases comes down to consent, usually lacking in witnesses. No one reasonably believes they are allowed to take any car they see and that the owner somehow consents, regardless of the keys. In contrast, The interaction between 2 often drunk parties often engaged in some voluntary sexual foreplay is much harder to judge, and whether consent was given or appeared to be given, to certain acts can be harder to ascertain. And the testimony of very drunk people, in any kind of case, is highly problematic. Yet another reason not to get so drunk (again, regardless of gender).
I have many men in my life - husband, son, brother, father, etc. None of them feels threatened. None of them talk about being targets. They are feminists and partners with the women in their lives, women who share the burdens in life - raising a family, earning a living, maintaining a home, etc. They are confident in knowing that they aren’t contributing to a hostile environment for women. They recognize that some men in society don’t treat women fairly and speak to that openly, even openly confronting other men at times. They seen the impact on women they love who have been victims of sexual assault, rape, sexual discrimination at work, catcalling, unwanted groping, you name it. They don’t view addressing these issues as a personal attack on them. There are many ways to walk through life as a male these days. They enjoy a more varied range of options to do just that, in ways that are often less traditional than they have been in the past. It’s actually refreshing to have norms that are more flexible these days. And, yes, they show emotions.
If you know you are a good person, a good man, no need to take it personally, IMO, when others point out the shortcomings women face in a society that continues to favor males. Giving more protections, rights, and power to women doesn’t make men “less” as men. Gender politics/feminism is not a zero sum game.