Donald Trump Rape Lawsuit

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-bloom/why-the-new-child-rape-ca_b_10619944.ht...

Sounds like a legit case. Where do we see this going?

Ultimately, nowhere. But that's just the cynicism talking.

Best coverage of related events starting the beginning of this year can be found here:
https://porkinspolicyreview.com/tag/jeffrey-epstein/

I haven't listened to the latest, but Pearse Redmond's interview at the bottom of the page and his February report do a great job filling in the big picture.

ETA: Actually, it's worth starting here, with this episode from August 2015 that didn't get tagged properly. https://porkinspolicyreview.com/2015/08/25/porkins-policy-radio-episode-36-ed-op...

"In this episode, we are joined by private investigator and host of The Opperman Report, Ed Opperman. Ed and I explore the mysterious case of billionaire pedophile Jeffery Epstein. We discuss the basics of the case: how the investigation was started down in Palm Beach, how Epstein evaded serious jail time and charges, and the way in which the media has portrayed his brave victims. Ed examines the strange background of Epstein. He explains how this poor kid from Coney Island was somehow able to rise to opulent wealth and power. Focusing on Epstein’s connections, from Bear Stearns to ponzi-schemer Steven Hoffenberg, Ed breaks down his meteoric rise to protected pedophile and blackmailer of the elite. Ed and I also analyze the reality of the ongoing civil lawsuit against Epstein, and how the victims in this lawsuit are actually winning! Later we discuss the various movers and shakers that remain in Epstein’s orbit, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, Chris Tucker, Jean Luc-Brunel, Ghislaine Maxwell and many more.

We then consider how the Epstein case fits into the larger narrative of pedophile rings and professional blackmail. Ed and I take a look at the Franklin Cover-Up and Henry Vinson’s case as earlier examples. We end by reviewing how the alternative media has covered the Epstein case, and how it has really dropped the ball in its investigation. We point out the serious lack of respect and dignity given to victims such as Virginia Roberts, who has been shamed and attacked by the alt-media in much the same way that the mainstream media has, and how these sorts of cases are covered in an exploitative way, designed to titillate, rather than in a mature, investigative way.

This is a long episode with a lot of detail on a case that both us feel very strongly about — a case that has not received the scrutiny it deserves form the media in general. I strongly encourage listeners to go through the documents linked in the show notes and explore this case for yourselves."

>2 davidgn:

Thanks for that. Epstein's relationship with Bill Clinton was mentioned the comments section of the article I linked to in >1 artturnerjr: as well. Kinda answers the question regarding whether or not Hillary's campaign is gonna make this an issue, doesn't it? :)

I dislike the blanket rule of believing victims. While fake rape claims are very rare, the psychology of them means they are clustered in high profile situations. You can't much more higher-profile than Trump. So while I'm inclined to instantly trust my neighbor who says they were raped, I'm going to withhold that trust when it's against a presidential candidate, however monstrous he is.

As the article points out, however, the evidence is a good deal more than one person's word. That cuts against dismissing the case, as the article says.

I'm not sure how the "media" should handle it. In general the media has a history of avoiding publicizing last-minute criminal complaints, and non-criminal charges of gravity, against presidential candidates. There have been quite a few over the years, but the media doesn't exist in the same way now—seasoned chain-smoking newsmen can no longer decide whether a drug accusation or a rape charge is or isn't news. So I would expect the progression of the case to continue to draw interest, especially from partisan sources, and considering the seriousness—both in charge and in evidence—of the complaint, that strikes me as a good thing.

>4 timspalding:

As the article points out, however, the evidence is a good deal more than one person's word. That cuts against dismissing the case, as the article says.

Yeah, the eyewitness corroboration of "Jane Doe's" accusation makes this a whole other ball game. In other cases, it might actually work against the plaintiff (who is going to rape someone with an eyewitness present?), but in dealing with a person of Trump's arrogance it may not be a factor; remember, this is a man who has stated on record that he could shoot someone in public and get away with it.

...the media doesn't exist in the same way now—seasoned chain-smoking newsmen can no longer decide whether a drug accusation or a rape charge is or isn't news. So I would expect the progression of the case to continue to draw interest, especially from partisan sources, and considering the seriousness—both in charge and in evidence—of the complaint, that strikes me as a good thing.

That's exactly right. I think it's fair to say that the advent of social media has democratized the notion of what is and isn't news to an unprecedented degree. That is, this is now largely a matter of what the people, rather than the traditional gatekeepers for such matters, decide. I have a feeling that this isn't going to get pushed under the rug the way it may have in past.

Considering whether it's true or not, the accusation serves a great many political interests, it may be reasonable to assume that this will gain attention.

Of course, the charges against 'Trump University', despite affecting a great many more people, haven't attracted that much mainstream attention, so who can say?

>4 timspalding: That has NEVER been a blanket rule.
Edited to remove what is probably the TOS offending clause.

>4 timspalding: I dislike the blanket rule of believing victims

If it were really a blanket rule to believe rape victims then you'd think there wouldn't be such fear, shame and stigma for the people reporting they'd been sexually assaulted, and the conviction and incarceration rate of perpetrators would be higher than 6 out of 1000.

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system

With increased numbers of "accusers" the likelihood of there being fire where there is a lot of smoke goes up exponentially, IMO. E.g.:

Six women to date (that I know of) have alleged Arnold Swartzenegger sexually harassed them. That sounds credible to me. Seems unlikely six women would conspire to indict an innocent man.

I believe there were ten women who alleged (ex) Sen. Mark Hatfield sexually harassed them. That sounds credible to me. Seems unlikely ten women would conspire to indict an innocent man.

I believe there are something like 60 women to date who have alleged Bill Cosby raped them. That sounds credible to me. Seems unlikely sixty women would conspire to indict an innocent man.

And there have been something like 30 women have alleged Bill Clinton sexually assaulted or raped them. That sounds credible to me. Seems unlikely thirty women would conspire to indict an innocent man.

So then one woman says trump raped her. OK. Since it is only one woman I would need to see more evidence, particularly if there is a trial and I am on the jury. Lie detector results are inadmissible but I would like to see the results of lie detector tests for both the woman and trump. Were there any other witness? And so forth.

trump is obviously guilty of being a freaking maniac. I think that should be enough to sink him in the race for President. It seems unlikely this rape charge will go anywhere but one never knows, does one?

To predict our political future with any accuracy is a tough call. E.g., a few days ago I'd say the likelihood of HRC being indicted for violation of our Espionage laws was something like 10,000 to one.

Today? - maybe the odds are somewhat reduced. Maybe it's only a hundred to one now.

>9 JGL53:

So then one woman says trump raped her.

Not just one. Two other women have accused Trump of sexual assault:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/07/27/ex-wife-donald-trump-made-feel-...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/feb/25/donald-trump-sexual-assault-125-...

Were there any other witness?

Yes. One "Tiffany Doe" has given a sworn statement that she witnessed Jane Doe "being forced to perform various sexual acts with Donald J. Trump and Mr. Epstein. Both Mr. Trump and Mr. Epstein were advised that she was 13 years old." (see link in the OP)

>8 southernbooklady: If it were really a blanket rule to believe rape victims then you'd think there wouldn't be such fear, shame and stigma for the people reporting they'd been sexually assaulted, and the conviction and incarceration rate of perpetrators would be higher than 6 out of 1000.

I think you know what I am referring to. No, of course society at large, or the legal system, has no such rule. On the contrary, there are various ways society, the legal system and so forth lets rape victims down. No, I am referring to the blanket call to "believe victims" that has achieved considerable currency on the left-side of American politics in recent years. As I said, it's an fine rule of thumb in normal life (provided we don't make a legal principle of it), but it tends to break down precisely where it's used most—tricky, high-profile cases.

>7 RickHarsch:

\Removed request to obey the TOS. Not sure why you want me to.\

Not just one. Two other women have accused Trump of sexual assault

I think that's pretty serious, and worth investigation. I would note, however, that similar claims were and are dismissed when they apply to Bill Clinton. This is perhaps why we need our partisan media.

>7 RickHarsch: I removed the offensive clause. Will you remove your offensive words?

>11 timspalding: I think you know what I am referring to.

Honestly, I think our failure as a society to deal with rampant sexual assault supersedes any right/left political sniping. But within your own stated context I'd say that what you call the left's "blanket rule of believing the victims" is part of what I'd call the blanket rule of either side to believe and accept the worst of the other. That is something not exclusive to either the right or the left.

And Bill Clinton, for what it is worth, does not and never has got a pass from me. Men who can't keep it in their pants never do.

>13 southernbooklady:

I don't really your point. Do you not see "believe victims" whenever a rape case is alleged? (See https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=%22believe+victims%... for such statements, and the reaction to them.) I'm not sure what this has to do with believing the best or worst of political sides.

As I've said, I think, socially, "believe victims" is a good rule of thumb. False rape claims are rare, no doubt because there's little reason to concoct them, and major reasons to suppress them. It tends to fall down more often for the "big" cases. If my neighbor says she was raped, I'll believe her. If someone somewhere says Obama or Trump or a major star did it, the bar has to be higher. And, obviously, our social defaults have nothing to do with legal standards of evidence.

>14 timspalding: I think in rape cases the victim should not be automatically treated as if he or she is lying. Is that what you are asking? I don't see how that is a left or right issue either -- it's just being a decent person. So I guess I don't see your point.

See edits.

Touchstone exploration of some of the issues, with UVA http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/12/10/always-believe-the-accuser/

>16 timspalding: Honestly, I don't think how high profile the accused is should come into it. If someone claims a crime has been committed, it has to be investigated. There's no getting around that -- we as a society have to at least take the victim seriously enough to launch an investigation. If the accusation is spurious, presumably an investigation will show that.

And really, what's the alternative? It took 11 years for the initial accusation against Bill Cosby to even come to trial. Nearly 50 women who claim they were drugged and assaulted by Cosby throughout most of his career didn't try to report it, because, you know, it was Bill Cosby. In one case where a woman did tell a reporter, the newspaper didn't run the story.

So I think sexual assault accusations should always be taken seriously, until an investigation proves that they shouldn't be. I don't think that's a "leftist" position, though. Just a decent one.

>17 southernbooklady:

Well, you're changing the standards of evidence. Nobody said "taken seriously." And nobody said "not investigated."

Rape claims are like any other sort of claim. The best thing is to know the truth. The criminal system is set up to do something close to that--to establish a claim beyond a reasonable doubt. Absent or before that, however, we need to decide how to weigh the claim, and talk about it. That means thinking about plausibility, motives, corroboration and so forth. As I've said, I wouldn't withhold judgment if some ordinary citizen claimed she was raped--I'd pretty much default to believing her. Unless I know otherwise, I'd assume she has nothing to gain, and so much to lose--surely why false rape claims are rare in the first place. Why would someone make a false claim? A claim against, say, Obama should be investigated too. But I can think of plenty of reasons people would make a false claim against Obama, so my default position would not be "guilty."

By the way, when I wrote that, I had no idea that Obama had ever been accused of rape. He has been so accused—multiple times.

I don't believe any of the claims. I'm guessing you don't either. The question is, why? I feel like I've laid out a way of thinking about claims that allows us to consider factors like cui bono—a factor that changes markedly for celebrity accusations—and you have avoided the issue, while also implying I'm indecent for thinking that way.

>15 southernbooklady:

Presumption of innocence is a keystone of our legal system.

Rape or murder, theft or fraud.

>19 timspalding: I don't believe any of the claims. I'm guessing you don't either.

I also don't believe or disbelieve the claim against Trump. I do think the claim should be investigated, and I do think the investigation should be reported objectively. Here, by the way, is a breakdown of the history of the claim at snopes.com:

http://www.snopes.com/2016/06/23/donald-trump-rape-lawsuit/

It dates back to 1994 and somebody's "sex parties" that Trump may have attended.

But the implication that our natural sympathies for the victim are political capital the left doesn't hesitate to exploit -- which really is the only way I can interpret this harping on the reaction to charges against Trump vs charges against Clinton, you did, after all, specifically mention "the left" (whatever you mean by that) with this -- that I find distasteful, to say the least.

The question is, why?

This indeed is the question, but my perspective is substantively different from yours. You say I'm avoiding the issue, when I think your perspective is artificially narrow. The question is not "why do we believe the accuser even when he/she has something to gain? or why is the celebrity automatically thought guilty instead of innocent" -- it is "why is it so easy to believe someone is a rapist?"

And here, frankly, I think we have a terrible comment on our culture, which feminists call without irony and without hyperbole "a rape culture." That 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted statistic stares us down like a condemnation.

I think the uneasiness men feel in the face of accusations of rape -- whether they happen to college football players or friends or celebrities -- comes from the real fact that sexual assault is an epidemic in this country. That it is hard for us as a culture to identify sex without (full, aware) consent as rape. I suspect that we worry, in the deep dark recesses of our minds, whether or not we could be accused of rape for some past ill-advised sexual encounter. And what would happen to us if we were, in a case where the evidence is so often he said/she said (or he said/he said; she said/she said!)?

You ask how we should talk about these things? I don't think cui bono is where we should stop.

>20 Jesse_wiedinmyer: Presumption of innocence is a keystone of our legal system.


But not of our social interactions, which is why an investigation is necessary. I need hardly point out that many rapes are never reported because the victim feels that she/he will be held to be "guilty."

I think the uneasiness men feel in the face of accusations of rape -- whether they happen to college football players or friends or celebrities -- comes from the real fact that sexual assault is an epidemic in this country.

Ok, let's run with this..

Let's assume that all accusations of rape are grounded.

What happens when all that is needed are claims?

>23 Jesse_wiedinmyer: all that is needed?

A claim is a legal step, that's how the investigation begins. The claim is investigated, then a determination is made as to whether there is merit to justify a fuller investigation, and whether it warrants a criminal accusation (or a civil trial).

>22 southernbooklady:

Nicki, you may be the single social media "friend" that I have more respect for than just about any other, but I think you're off here.

And I can't state that any more autistically bluntly than I just have.

If you want to get deep into the conversation, than I'm more than willing to.

>24 southernbooklady:

Obviously. But as far as I can tell, most rape claims don't make it beyond the first step.

>26 Jesse_wiedinmyer: I can tell, most rape claims don't make it beyond the first step.

Which is telling in itself.

>25 Jesse_wiedinmyer: I think you're off here.
You and many others, I'm sure.

The idea that people are innocent until proven guilty is a necessary legal foundation that protects us from a tyrannical state. But while it is a worthy ideal, it does not necessarily translate into the social sphere. We make judgments about people -- including people we don't know -- all the time. We do so based on what we read, what we watch, what our friends say, what our enemies say. What "innocent until proven guilty" means in the social sphere is "trust" -- we are to trust a person is good until we are given believable evidence that they are not.

And there, too, I think that is a generally good principle to live by. "Assume the best" where you can. Now "trustworthy" is not a word that is usually associated with any politician, much less Donald Trump, but the truth is, I don't know if he had sex with a 13 year old sex slave at some sleazeball party in 1994. That's the best option I've got. I can assume the best about the accuser and let her claim be investigated, until it is upheld or dismissed, and I can say about Trump, I don't know if he's a rapist, we have to see what that investigation shows.

But no, I don't trust Trump. I do think he deserves a fair and objective investigation (and trial, if it were to come to that).

Yes, innocent until proven guilty - that is the legal standard, i.e., the law in the U.S - wherein no citizen questions that fact, except those who are ignorant asses.

Moving on - in the social arena, not withstanding the superior agnosticism of the elite, we each of us peons might very well come to a reasonable conclusion about someone's guilt - or non-guilt - regarding some charge of criminal behavior (using only our personal fallible reasoning abilities - granted).

So then - in my strong opinion, at this point in time, based on what I know, the chances of Bill Clinton being a non-rapist is approximately the same as me being the unrecognized Dauphin of France.

Presumption of innocence is a keystone of our legal system.

But not of our social interactions

Right.

which really is the only way I can interpret this harping on the reaction to charges against Trump vs charges against Clinton

I don't think you understood me at all. My point was that, indeed, there are good reasons to make the belief of victims our default in some circumstances, but not in others. All things being equal, if my next door neighbor said she was raped, I would believe it, simply and completely, just as I would believe her if she said she had cancer, was fired or lost a parent. I know, of course, that people lie about all of these things, but very rarely. Why would they do it? Claims against political officials and other celebrities don't get the same sort of pass with me, because I know the calculus of "why would they?" is different. Of course, I support investigations. But I don't grant such claims the same automatic, default support.

And here, frankly, I think we have a terrible comment on our culture, which feminists call without irony and without hyperbole "a rape culture." That 1 in 6 women will be sexually assaulted statistic stares us down like a condemnation.

In general, we're in greater agreement on the deeper causes. But this is a pitchforky conversation. I know that by saying anything about it, I risk being "that guy." That one in six women will be sexually assaulted is Gospel truth, and like all Gospel truth, questioning it isn't reasonable discourse about tricky topics of statistics and polling methodology, but evidence of heresy and depravity. One is not right or wrong, one is a monster.

Even so, the statistic is bunk, as has been point out again and again. So to many of the other claims--for example, that one in five women are raped in college. There are more debunkings of these stats that you can shake a stick at, but here's a decent one: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/cdc-study-on-sexual-violence-in-the-us-o...

"The agency’s figures are wildly at odds with official crime statistics. The FBI found that 84,767 rapes were reported to law enforcement authorities in 2010. The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, the gold standard in crime research, reports 188,380 rapes and sexual assaults on females and males in 2010. Granted, not all assaults are reported to authorities. But where did the CDC find 13.7 million victims of sexual crimes that the professional criminologists had overlooked?

It found them by defining sexual violence in impossibly elastic ways and then letting the surveyors, rather than subjects, determine what counted as an assault. Consider: In a telephone survey with a 30 percent response rate, interviewers did not ask participants whether they had been raped. Instead of such straightforward questions, the CDC researchers described a series of sexual encounters and then they determined whether the responses indicated sexual violation. A sample of 9,086 women was asked, for example, “When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever had vaginal sex with you?” A majority of the 1.3 million women (61.5 percent) the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010 experienced this sort of “alcohol or drug facilitated penetration.”

What does that mean? If a woman was unconscious or severely incapacitated, everyone would call it rape. But what about sex while inebriated? Few people would say that intoxicated sex alone constitutes rape — indeed, a nontrivial percentage of all customary sexual intercourse, including marital intercourse, probably falls under that definition (and is therefore criminal according to the CDC)."

The author doesn't not it, but the grammatical ambiguity of "When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever had vaginal sex with you?" is close to criminal. What does "unable to consent" go with?

I had friends in graduate school--now happily married with multiple kids--who regularly smoked marijuana and had sex with each other. It was their thing, and, well, marijuana was decriminalized in Ann Arbor. For all I know, this is still their practice. You cited the one in six number. Do you think they're rapists?

I think the uneasiness men feel in the face of accusations of rape -- whether they happen to college football players or friends or celebrities -- comes from the real fact that sexual assault is an epidemic in this country.

I can't speak for "men," but I suspect reasons differ. One reason is, I hazard, that a non-trivial percentage of men are sexual predators. Within certain defined limits, such men used to have something close to a free hand--anyway, since the Sexual Revolution and, on colleges, the arrival of coeducation. The odds are still in their favor, but the risk for them has become more real.

But another reason are two legitimate fears. First, we do believe victims. As I've argued, that's a good thing, in normal circumstances. I certainly would shun someone accused of rape. But it can be a little terrifying for a man when he realizes that a false accusation will trigger the same reaction as a true one. Second, many men feel that more and more has slipped into the category of rape over time--especially that drunken hook-ups, or even drunk sex between long-term partners, are now defined as rape.

I don't have much of a purchase on this myself. I was not a big drinker during college and—TMI—have never hooked up with a stranger. I don't do drugs at all. But I certainly have had sex after sharing a bottle of wine with a girlfriend or wife, so I find the new rhetoric around that silly indeed. And insofar as this gets baked into bogus statistics, and sets public policy, it's worrying.

>29 timspalding: I don't think you understood me at all. My point was that, indeed, there are good reasons to make the belief of victims our default in some circumstances, but not in others

Oh, I understand you. I even agree with you up to a point. But there's a dark implication to your argument -- people in power deserve more benefit of the doubt than people without power. And surely, in practice, this is how it plays out, which is why Bill Cosby could spend most of his career assaulting women without repercussion.

The author doesn't not it, but the grammatical ambiguity of "When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever had vaginal sex with you?" is close to criminal. What does "unable to consent" go with?

The entire force of your argument depends on deprioritizing consent. In effect, it lists an ever-increasing series of scenarios where consent is not applicable:

Please remember that even if someone uses alcohol or drugs, what happens to them is not their fault.” Obviously, the intended point is that even if you got drunk, you’re not to blame for being raped. But this vaguely phrased reminder could also be taken to mean that it’s not your fault if you do something stupid while drunk or on drugs.

http://time.com/3393442/cdc-rape-numbers/

Somebody should try that argument out the next time they get caught drinking and driving.

Sorry, but I think consent is always applicable. I think the presence or absence of it is always germane. It is the first and last control we have over our own bodies, so it is never irrelevant -- even when we are drunk or high. And frankly, I think our society would look a helluva lot different if we regarded consent with the same kind of moral imperative that we grant other matters of conscience-- such as killing. What if disregading consent were as morally repugnant to us as murder? Or torture? That 1 in 6 figure wouldn't exist.

And as for debunking statistics, I don't find myself wowed by an argument that criticizes the CDC for making it as easier, rather than harder, for victims of sexual assault to be included in their statistics. I find myself wondering where I would fit in this drive for narrowly defined cases of rape and attempted rape. The school janitor that trapped me by my locker and put his hand between my legs? That didn't go anywhere because luckily someone came by and saw what was happening. Luckily, too, that same person was braver than me and reported it immediately to the principle (at the time I just wanted to pretend it didn't happen). So, attempted rape? Probably not according to the arguments above. My little contribution to those statistics would be irrelevant. But was it an insignificant event? Not hardly. It was just one more piece of evidence that sort of thing can happen at anytime to anyone, because frankly, as a society we don't think "consent" is all that important.

>29 timspalding:
>30 southernbooklady:

#30: '...there's a dark implication to your argument -- people in power deserve more benefit of the doubt than people without power. And surely, in practice, this is how it plays out, which is why Bill Cosby could spend most of his career assaulting women without repercussion.'

precisely

#29: '...Claims against political officials and other celebrities don't get the same sort of pass with me, because I know the calculus of "why would they?" is different.' I believe I understand what you think, but I don't think you understand what such thinking eclipses. You seem to entirely gloss over what we all know to be true about power and rape. And you seem to think that a very long history of powerful men committing rape with impunity has somehow been rendered unimportant by a smattering of false claims. I would venture to guess, and urge you to understand, that the number of false claims is minuscule compared to the number of non-claims.

And their IS historicity. Sure, the waters have been muddied in regard to alcohol and consent, but given the weight of past injustice, is this really a terrible problem in comparison? The burden is now shifting to a very slight degree to men to be extra fucking careful, though I believe the balance is still tremendously in their favor. It's imbalanced to be so damn concerned about that small a problem when the larger issue, what is being referred to as rape culture, is far from solved.

> 31 "shifting to a very slight degree to men to be extra fucking careful..."

LOL. The "men" for the most part are 18 -25 years old. Good luck with getting such to concern themselves with the possible bad outcomes of their actions of the moment, especially if the young men are under the influence themselves. The fucking problem (pun intended) is baked in the cake. It is the nature of the beast. You'd more likely be successful in stopping unwanted pregnancies among unmarried women by persuading them to forgo sexual intercourse until marriage. Or solve the abortion controversy by persuading women just to never have them.

Instead of dreaming of some program to persuade young men not to "do it" with their drunk dates why not focus on educating young women not to drink when they go on dates? Maybe that miracle might happen. Getting young men (boys, really) to keep it in their pants? Yeah, good luck with that one, feminists. We just need to educate them to "respect" women? Well, knock yourselves out. lol.

>32 JGL53: Maybe the solution is for men to wear chastity belts until they are 25. ;-)

> 33

Yes. But I can only imagine that such is somewhat less likely to ever happen than the miracle of young women making rational decisions to limit themselves to one beer on a date.

Outside of prison, where most of us humans reside, when rapes occur it is women who are for the most part getting raped, not men. Thus one would think women would be leading all efforts to prevent rape, not men. Expecting those men who are rapists or potential rapists to just please stop - that seems ineffective to me. Rapists, I would think, do not respond at all to 'pretty please' requests. I think that is why they are rapists.

In a nutshell if women do not take rational action to prevent rape then rape will not be prevented.

>34 JGL53: if women do not take rational action to prevent rape then rape will not be prevented.

So...legally mandated chastity belts for men. It could be like seat belt laws -- intrusive and a pain in the ass but worth it for all the damage they prevent by a population too stupid to behave rationally.

> 35

(to paraphrase) - There are eight million beautiful feminist dreams in the Naked City.

This has been one of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0aoVkdeYqw

>34 JGL53: Also, to add to what >35 southernbooklady: said, one does not have to be drunk to be raped. And the one doing the raping may be drunk so prohibiting alcohol for males would also be wise if you are going to prohibit it for females.

>35 southernbooklady: Maybe not precisely the way to go, but in all seriousness more progress than I usually see.

> 37

Well, firstly, I don't advocate prohibiting alcohol for adults - that has already been tried and only made millions criminals who previously were not.

My suggestion was that we as a society could advocate, e.g., in PSAs and propaganda in schools and other places, that young women take up the "one beer only" rule on dates. I don't see why this should not have some real impact the way anti-tobacco propaganda does and has.

But I offer this idea not as some overarching panacea for the rape "epidemic". It is just one thing we could easily do.

Now that I think about it some sort of education on the subject for male children, starting at least a year or two before puberty, might be a good idea. I'm not a psychologist, and certainly not a child psychologist, but societal norms are changeable - subject to beneficent manipulation - as we all know, so why can't formal teaching be a useful tool as opposed to some general disapproval (of rape) expressed by society - which is apparently all we have now.

All this of course is only addressing "date rape". The solutions to rape committed by some criminal stranger is problem that requires some other approach. Someone who does something that sick has some real psychological problems far beyond that of some frat house punk who is confused about when "no" means "no".

How about advocating for the notion that people of other genders (and races, and ethnicities, and spiritual beliefs, and sexual preferences, and political beliefs) are human beings, too, and not just objects to be used, abused, and/or manipulated, as tirelessly as possible, without concern about how banal and obvious it may sound to others?

How about teaching our children that empathy is the signal attribute of all the good things people do, and nothing much of any good happens without it?

How about working as hard as we possibly can to be role models for others in these areas?

It seems to me that these things would not just reduce rape and sexual harassment, they would eliminate the majority of evils in this world.

Are these really such radical notions? Are we really so far gone in our narcissism/xenophobia/misogyny/etc., as a society and individuals, that we can't do these things anymore?

*end of rant*

>40 artturnerjr: Amen

> 40

Rednecks-republicans-teabaggers are the major source of all which you deplore. The actuarial tables seem to indicate that such are slowly but surely being marginalized - perhaps by dying off or becoming outnumbered by the somewhat more liberal. It does not seem that way most of the time but numbers don't lie.

As an e.g., if the voting population in 2008 and 2012 was demographically the same as in 1980 when Reagan was elected, then Barack Obama could never have ever been elected. We would be stuck with President McCain or Romney or some such.

Thus I see no reason to completely despair. I think the U.S. in 2075 may very well be a very much better place to raise your children. I am trying my best to live to be 126 years old so that I may witness it. lol.

>42 JGL53:

I think the default setting for human beings, unfortunately, is to sort of be wary of those who don't look like us, don't have the same worldview as us, don't have the same sexual orientation as us, etc. We see these folks as "the other". Here's the good news: we can actually go out and make friends with people of different races/ethnicities/belief systems/etc. In doing so, we will inevitably find that these folks' hopes, dreams, and aspirations are remarkably similar to our own, and that they are remarkably similar to us. Those that fail to do so will remain stuck in their conservative/reactionary mindset. They are in a prison of their own making. It's really not a whole lot more complicated than that.

Contrary to what the crabby tone of my previous post may have indicated, I am hopeful for the future. We have made remarkable progress in civil rights in this country; sometimes it is agonizingly slow, sometimes not (look how quickly gay marriage went from "Uh, not on my radar" to "Wow! It's the law of the land!"). Sometimes it seems like it's one step forward, two steps back, but progress is always there. This has been going on for a very long time, and I see no reason to believe that this trend won't continue for a very long time.

2075 minus 2016 = 59. You're old enough to be my...older brother. In fact, I have two older brothers your age. Numbers don't lie, but my brothers do.

>43 artturnerjr: I disagree about the default setting, as every human looks different from us. Remember Marlene Rosenberg, my kindergarten girlfriend? Black curly hair, a bit heavy? Brown eyes. I was brown haired, greenish eyes, skinny. We hit it off just fine.

Trump will be in court in Dec. to respond to the rape charges against him of a 13 year-old girl.

Federal Judge Ronnie Abrams has ordered that the status conference hearing for 16 December in a New York court.

She has asked for both sides to provide information to assist the Court in advancing the case to settlement or trial.