Emma Sulkowicz's Alleged Attacker speaks again in new article

Parents Forum
621

Random thoughts:

@HarvestMoon1, I think you are getting some of my vibe re: college days. There is something about being in college, being in that “bubble” or insular society that at least for me, made everything feel more MORE than perhaps it actually was with hindsight. (NOT diminishing the seriousness of rape here, I am talking IN GENERAL.)

I belonged to clubs where we could debate for hours into the night what members should be called, who should be admitted, etc. Relationships were life and death. The drama was incredible. Everything seemed heightened. In that environment, I can see how pillows would just ruin everything.

Now though, stuff I went through in college seems silly and overblown looking back on it now. So present-me sees a memo about pillows and thinks it is ridiculous, along similar lines as emails sent out from sororities about how you can’t wear your glasses and must wear spanx etc.

On a different topic, I do think hardline definitions and language might be helpful for all concerned. For example, i would be curious to know how people would interpret the events from the Columbia marching band article:

“The student told Spectator that the alumnus allegedly rubbed her back, kissed her neck, and tried to pick her up at a band member’s personal party in January 2014.”

Is this something you don’t define at all, that you would blow off and tell the guy to get lost and forget about it 5 minutes later?

Is this something you would define as sexual harassment?

Is this something you would define as sexual assault? (legally, I think this student would not be able to press assault charges for this but I am not a lawyer or a cop)

622

While I waited to see whether anyone else would respond to pittsburghscribe, I did some laundry and talked with a sister on the phone.

There are now four generations of fraternity men in my family. One son was in one of the “good” fraternities. He knew this was going to distress me and when he called to tell me about pledging said, “This isn’t the kind of fraternity you are thinking about. They are gay guys. I want to invite one of those guys home next break and introduce him to brother.” This son has my number.

Just like we have known about campus rape for a long time, without being able to make much impact, we have known about hazing. If fraternities that practiced hazing wanted to stop hazing, they could stop it. It is part of their culture and they don’t stop it. And it does impact campus culture at some colleges. imho.

Because of the negative impact on campus culture, I would like to see all fraternities (good and bad) closed down. The good men not allowed to participate in the good fraternities aren’t disadvantaged in the same way as women who are raped. I believe fraternities have too much power to close them down. Moving them off campus doesn’t solve the problem.

623

620

Thank you!

I don’t have enough information to give an opinion on whether the behavior is harassment or assault. I am assuming this is a man with a sexual interest in the woman he is rubbing, kissing, and is trying to pick up? I am not sure when repeatedly asking someone on a date, or for sex, crosses the line into harassment. I don’t think anyone should be rubbing my shoulders or kissing my neck without my consent if their intent is that this is some kind of foreplay. I am definitely not in the “blowing it off camp”.

624

I’ve been trying to follow this thread for a while so excuse me for jumping in, but I’m having a very hard time understanding. From momof3boys:

You keep claiming that not everything is rape, that the line is blurry, ok whatever. Emma claims that she was anally penetrated without her consent. Are you saying this isn’t rape?? You haven’t answered that question and while it seems like the obvious answer is yes, I genuinely can’t be sure from your posts that you think this is rape.

Now, if this actually happened-- that Emma was forcibly penetrated without her consent-- I think we can all agree that is awful and terrible and horrible. If that actually happened, can anyone blame her for trying to bring attention to her case? I know that if I were me, and no punishment ever came to the person who did it, I’d be angry and furious. It wouldn’t just be, like, well he wasn’t found guilty, so I was wrong, it didn’t happen! I wouldn’t care what the official decision was, if I knew that it happened, hell yeah I’d kick up a storm about it. If that was you or your daughter, I’m sure you wouldn’t be like, “now honey, they said there’s not enough evidence to accuse him, so let’s stop acting like this happened.”

Are we still on the same page? Ok. Now what I don’t get is why you are calling her all these awful things. You’re saying she can’t be walking around dragging a mattress claiming to be raped if she actually hasn’t. You’re saying she’s silly and vindictive and a harasser and all these things that kind of make me sick to be honest. So why? Why are you soooo positive that she’s deserving of all this verbal abuse on your part? I thought we established a while ago that rape is often he said/she said and can be very hard to prove. Yes, agreed. So if it was he said/she said here, and they didn’t have enough to firmly say Paul was guilty, why are we still acting as if the decision ACTUALLY means he wasn’t guilty? This is what confuses me. Please help me understand. Thanks.

625

I’m assuming that “pick her up” here means putting their arms around her and trying to lift her. I’m further assuming that she had done nothing affirmative to invite this attention. This seems persistent: the person rubbed her back, then kissed her neck, then put his arms around her and tried to lift her. It’s certainly sexual harassment: repeated unwanted attention of a sexual nature.

It’s not sexual assault in my state in law unless he tried to lift her up by the crotch, I don’t think.

The person’s a creep.

626

Oh. I assumed “tried to pick her up” was a euphemism for asking for sex or a date. It made sense to me in the context of rubbing and kissing her neck.

I agree he is a creep and I would prefer not to have to interact with creeps like this.

627

So, I do not think picking up is a physical thing here. It’s more like a pick-up line. “Hey baby. You are gorgeous!”

I agree with Alh. And, put me in the no big deal column. Really, learning to deal with creeps is part of life which I think may be momofthreeboys point. What are these girls going to do after graduation when there is no administrator to complain to about every micro-offense by a creep? It gets a little silly and diminishes the real issue of felony rape of which this is not even a distant cousin imho, although I know others disagree with that last part and the whole rape culture thing.

628

I think in the context, if the person was offering unwanted verbal attention rather than more unwanted physical attention, the article would have said that and not been mealy-mouthed. But we can’t know. That’s why I stated my interpretation.

629

CF: I only wish media writing was as clear as your posts.

Marie: If I am in an office setting and a man rubs my shoulders and kisses my neck, you can bet I’m reporting that to Human Resources immediately. What are you going to do?

630

Honestly, I have in the past giggled and moved on with my day. Sorry.

631

Re: 623, I’m not inclined to go over everyone’s post and write a summary for you, but if you take the time and read the UVa thread from start to finish and then start on this one you’ll find most of the answers to your questions in several posters’ commentary. If you’re just interested in Emma, this thread is pretty much long and thorough analysis. You’ll miss alot of context if you just drop into the middle of it.

632

MOTB: I have carefully read all your posts in all the threads and I do not understand how you define rape. I cannot understand anything you are writing if I do not understand how you define rape.

633

A few points–I apologize if some of them are from way back in the thread:
1.

It’s been pointed out several times that Emma did not do everything she could–she didn’t follow through on the criminal complaint, and she didn’t file a complaint in civil court. Note that the latter is what the Goldman family did when O.J. Simpson was acquitted–and they won that civil suit. (I’ve pointed out that the guy didn’t do everything he could have done to clear his name, either.)

  1. I've been thinking about the "Adam" accusation, and whether two independent accusations make it more likely that an accused person is guilty of one (or both) of them. Here's a thought experiment: a. George is independently accused by two neighbors of kicking their dogs. What is the likelihood that George is a dog-kicker? b. George is accused by a neighbor of kicking his dog, and independently accused at school of cheating on a math test. What is the likelihood that George is a dog-kicker and/or a cheater? The application to this case is that we don't actually know what Adam accused the guy of, and we don't actually know that doing what Adam says was done to him makes it more likely that what Emma says was done to her actually occurred. Are they really similar enough? We don't know that, and we shouldn't assume.
  2. Finally, another thought experiment. Sam is on the college boxing team, and asks his friend Bob to be his sparring partner. They spar numerous times over the course of the semester, with Sam usually landing the lion's share of blows on Bob's less skilled body. Four months after the sparring ends, Bob brings a complaint against Sam for physical assault, saying that he never really wanted to be Sam's sparring partner, that Sam shamed him into it and that Sam accused him of being a coward when he wanted to quit. How would you adjudicate this case?
634

Momofthreeboys has stated repeatedly that she knows that Emma Sulkowicz was not raped.

MO3B could believe that consent to one form of sexual activity is consent to all forms of sexual activity. In this definition of consent, Sulkowicz could not possibly have been raped, because she acknowledges consenting to something sexual.

Or MO3B could believe that a person can consent to one sexual activity without consenting to all, and also believe that we can be certain that in fact Sulkowicz did consent to the anal sex in question.

She refuses to clarify. It’s a waste of time to have a discussion with someone who won’t tell you what they are talking about.

635

Cardinal Fang, not to try to paint you into a corner or anything, but could you define what you mean by “screaming?”

636

CF I would appreciate if you would not attempt to mischaracterize what I say it is extremely rude and I have never been rude to you. This is a discussion where people have different opinions. Sometimes it’s good to take a break if that is the heart of the issue. I’ve tried repeatedly and often to re-clarify specific posts for you. If you cite a particular post I will be happy to try to explain it in a different manner or you are free to PM me if you have a question that can be taken off line.

637

Response to Hunt #632:

410 I wrote: [quote] If I am Emma, and someone rapes me and isn't found guilty and removed from campus - I will want to do what I can to make them leave. If I am Emma's parent, I am doing whatever I can to remove that student from campus. I don't want her at the same college with her rapist. I don't think she should have to leave because she was raped.

[/quote]

In #410, I am actually writing what I believe I would do if I were Emma or the parent of Emma. I am not saying this is what Emma or her parents did. In post #406 I tried to put myself in the position of Paul’s parents.

I have said, in my opinion, interpretation of posts is inevitable and it is possible your interpretation of mine is correct, regardless of what I think I was writing. We are all revealing more than we intend here and sometimes unconscious biases. Perhaps that was one of mine.

638

alh, state’s define rape and I think I’ve said this before, but in our state the law does not use the word rape we have Criminal Sexual Conduct in the First Degree, Criminal Sexual Conduct in the Second Degree. I don’t have a personal short-hand for a definition. Here is what RAINN says:

I’ve probably used the word rape off and on over this past year because alot of posters use it, but actually I should probably stick with Sexual Misconduct which would run the gamut.

639

@rebeccar - Even though I disagree with what Emma is doing, I don’t think I’ve personally called her any harsh names. I do think what Emma is doing constitutes harassment of another student. So if someone else wants to call her a “bully” or a “harasser”, then I don’t have any objection. Personally, I think that Emma might very well have been raped, so even though I disagree with what she’s doing I don’t think we should throw adjectives around too freely. But that’s me.

I have 0 problems with her protest / art project. Just don’t cross the line into harassing another student.

(Also, there’s absolutely no ambiguity in my mind that what Emma says happened to her is rape. I think saying otherwise is just crazy, and I don’t blame you for being upset at statements to the contrary).

Your point is valid - the fact that Paul wasn’t found guilty doesn’t mean we know with 100% metaphysical certainty whether he was innocent. But it does mean that the school needs to treat him as a student with the same rights as any other. Conversely, if he was found guilty it doesn’t mean that he is truly guilty. But in that case, the school could expel him. It’s all the same thing in my eyes.

If I were president of Columbia, this is what I’d want to tell Emma -

I understand you think you’ve been wronged. But we did the best we could, we had a hearing, we had an appeal, and we just couldn’t conclude that Paul was guilty. That’s our process. If you want to call me names in the media, then I’ll sit here and take it because that’s my job. If you want to carry a mattress around, that’s fine. Bring attention to the cause you believe, agitate for change. I’ll even tolerate a fair amount of disruption to the campus, because you are fighting for a good cause. I may or may not adopt the changes you want, but if you make a reasonable case I’ll consider it. But I’ve got to balance everyone’s rights.

But I hope this is clear too – you can’t harass another of my students. If you can’t live with that, then leave. Feel free to transfer. There’s a line. Don’t cross it. If you keep harassing another one of my students, I’ll see to it that you’re removed from campus. But you’ll have the right to defend yourself at your hearing first, same as everyone else.

640

I too thought “pick her up” was not physical, more along the lines of asking her if she was a pisces. I do agree though it is not clear. Physically picking her up would change things for me.

If the above scenario (neck kissing back rubbing pisces) happened at work, I would have a different more severe reaction (reporting it) than I would if it happened at a college party. At the party I would probably tell the guy to get lost or just walk away.

I have been told in the past that I give off a “vibe”–this kind of thing just does not happen to me. People seem to know it would not be cool to touch me or approach me in such a way. I have a friend who seems to attract creepos like flies to honey. Not sure why that is? She does nothing to invite the behavior whatsoever in action, word, or anything, but for some reason they see her as a target and not me.

Anyone have some insight?