Tidal wave of sexual assault-misconduct allegations list

[_DoubtingThomas]

The irony here is your definition of "subjective" is so subjective I can't make heads or tails of it. The law is so heavily entwined with interpreting subjective states - and necessarily so - that I've taken the approach to hold off until you can be more specific.

You wrote, ""This egregiously misunderstands what the burden of proof is in a harassment claim. You can call your coworker a stupid cum dumpster and that won't meet a harassment burden. Your boss might not think you a team-player and fire you for that, but it wouldn't count as sexual harassment in a strict legal sense. Sexual harassment is stating or implying that a person's advantages or disadvantages in employment are dependent on them returning sexual favor or creating a pervasive - meaning frequent and severe - hostile environment based on a person's gender or discriminating against them based on the same. There is legal precedent for what that looks like.""

If what you wrote above is true and applies in all companies, then there is nothing to worry about. So if you are right it means fathers don't get fired for stupid stuff like elevator eyes for example. It was my only concern, you answered it.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Here's an interesting perspective from a UK police inspector:

http://archive.li/Ns35n

As a serving policeman, there are several things I am not allowed to talk about.

There are plenty of operational secrets we cannot discuss, but I’m not referring to those. I’m talking about the taboo subjects. The ‘detection’ rate for rape is one of these.

It’s very frustrating to sit and listen to pundits talking about the low number of rape convictions in Court, when as police officers we all know what lies behind these poor numbers.

For example, I couldn’t possibly tell you that out of every ten rapes which are reported in Ruraltown, at least eight turn out to be nonsense. To be fair, eight out of ten of everything reported at Ruraltown police station is nonsense, why should rape be any different?

I couldn’t tell you that of the remaining two, an existing alcohol-fuelled chaotic drug-based relationship is a factor in at least one of these, and ‘consent’ is probably present in the other to some degree. In my whole service I can only recall three stranger rapes and a half a dozen where consent was withdrawn at the time and he carried on. But I can’t tell you that.

I can’t tell you that most of the adult rapes reported in Ruraltown represent either the latest in a series of allegations designed to score points against an ‘ex, lies designed to fend off an angry parent when a curfew has been missed or a defence mechanism when a jilted ‘partner’ discovers an infidelity.

A rape once reported, even if withdrawn later, is in the system and a failure to bring someone to justice, even if it never happened, shows up in the ‘detection’ rate. The ‘detection rate’ is low because the number of rapes which actually happen is low. I couldn’t possibly say that though.

So who suffers when Charlene drops by the nick to accuse Wayne of raping her because she is hacked off that he used her child benefit money for drugs? Who suffers when we deploy a full investigation team, send officers out to arrest Wayne and deploy CSI’s and specialist rape officers to the victim suite, all for Charlene to suddenly decide that she loves him and he didn’t do it after all? Who loses when she can’t identify a scene (because there never was a scene) when we can see on CCTV that Wayne was in the High Street (on his own) at the material time and that her mobile phone records show that she was texting her mate who works at Tesco, right at the time she was supposed to be being brutally taken by the boy?

The next genuine rape victim to walk into the police station, that’s who. The next genuine victim who may face the cynical looks and delayed reaction from officers who have just finished dealing with the last ten Charlenes.

I also shouldn’t tell you that it is Force Policy, in all but the most exceptional cases, not to prosecute Charlene for wasting police time. Apparently this would prevent genuine victims from coming forward. Make no mistake, the genuine victims suffer, the detection rate is low and we keep pretending that everything is alright.

The facts about rape seen from the street are this: most genuine rapes are against children under 13 years old and are within the family or family circle. Genuine adult rape is rare and nearly always charged to Court; what a jury do next is for them, but it usually comes down to ‘consent’ issues, and being as they were not in the bedroom at the time, and we are not simply proving intercourse because that is already admitted by the defendant, it’s not really within our gift to prove or disprove consent. Consent can amount to one word, said in a half whisper six months before in a darkened room where no one else was present.

But we can’t possibly say any of this. We will simply accept that it’s all our fault and promise to do better in the future.

- Doc

[_EAllusion]

A random police officer in the UK insists that when it comes to rape, it's mostly bitches be lying. "Genuine" rape almost never happens to adults. I'm pretty sure this supports anyone who wants to make the case case that the criminal justice system doesn't take rape seriously. I can't imagine why anyone would not want to report a rape to that officer.

On what I'm sure is a completely different topic, a single county in MI finally got around to testing years of untested rape kits that were lost in a warehouse. There was around 11 thousand of them. They've found 817 suspected serial rapists. Over 50 of them had over 10 hits a piece. So far they've got 127 convictions out of it.

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/col ... 953083001/

On another totally unrelated topic, did you read the Baltimore DOJ report on the local police? It was appalling on any number of fronts. One of those was that the police systematically looked to blame victims who attempted to report sexual assaults, made little to no effort to interrogate suspects or investigate in general, and were found to complain that, much like the quoted officer in that lovely link, that women are conniving whores making false claims.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/docume ... -FINAL.pdf

[_EAllusion]

If what you wrote above is true and applies in all companies, then there is nothing to worry about. So if you are right it means fathers don't get fired for stupid stuff like elevator eyes for example. It was my only concern, you answered it.

There's always something to worry about. I think you need to make a distinction in your mind between actionable harassment claims, which is a very high bar that actually tolerates a lot of totally unacceptable behavior, and other job expectations. Because businesses are run by fallible people, it's always possible that supervisors might err on the incorrect side in a claim of inappropriate sexual behavior. While you seem terrified of this happening in the direction of a man, there's all sorts of reason, including what this thread is about, that businesses are actually systematically underreacting to inappropriate, aggressive sexual behavior. What we can encourage is that allegations are treated seriously and internal procedures for establishing employee misconduct are good. I have no doubt that there are plenty of internal review processes that suck because their investigative procedures are garbage or the judgement of people running them is garbage. You can want to clean this up without also believing that sexual-harassment like behavior must be tolerated in the meantime.

I've only had to term one person myself for sexually inappropriate behavior. In my case, I had hard evidence, so it wasn't a tough call and I didn't get any flak from HR. I've been involved in other reasons for termination that were on the border of the preponderance of the evidence standard, I don't think any decent person looks forward to having to make those decisions with a person's job in their hands.

[_EAllusion]

I also termed a person who called me while in a verbal fight with one of his coworkers. He was shouting "Know your place, bitch!" and "Shut the f___ up woman!" over and over while I was on the phone. And he called me. For help I think. (The context in which it was occurring makes it especially bad, but I can't discuss that). I guess that's in the gender discrimination category.

The person he was in a fight with was awful - she managed to get herself termed shortly after too - and no doubt her obnoxious attitude broke down whatever sense he had in his brain.

[_cafe crema]

"It may be challenging for some to think of men being the victims of sexual crimes because it is challenging to recognize men as 'victims' and still think of them as men.”"

Isn't that just what you said in the thread about the boys and their teachers? You overwhelmingly seemed to view the boys situation as a win for them and went as far as saying that the boys were taking advantage of older women because they got what they wanted, how is it that you recognize men as victims when you seem to think that all they want is a willing vagina to put their dick?

[_DoubtingThomas]

You overwhelmingly seemed to view the boys situation as a win for them and went as far as saying that the boys were taking advantage of older women because they got what they wanted, how is it that you recognize men as victims when you seem to think that all they want is a willing vagina to put their dick?

In many US states the legal age of consent is 16 and 17. Now, why can't you tell the difference between consent and sexual assault? Why should women go to prison for consensual sex? I doubt people get arrested in countries like Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Croatia for consensual sex.

Anyways, it is off topic and you are derailing the thread. Consent - "Permission for something to happen or agreement to do something."

[_Jersey Girl]

I'd been a bit too busy with holiday related to keep reporting new incidents on this thread. I mentioned earlier that I remain stuck on the Al Franken allegations, his impending resignation,and my admitted bias that I believe we need him in the Senate. That and the fact that we have a sexual assault braggart in the White House. Just picked this up on my AOL. Apparently, I'm not alone in that thinking.

Al Franken’s already announced his intentions, saying, "I will be resigning as a member of the united state senate."

However, a new poll finds half of Minnesota voters don’t want the Senator to follow through come January 2nd, despite facing multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

The results from the Public Policy Polling found 42% of Minnesotans think the democratic senator should resign. Democrats, at 71%, overwhelmingly think Franken shouldn’t resign.

Interestingly, Franken’s approval rating is higher among women at 57% when compared to the 37% of men who approve of his performance.

Multiple women have accused the former SNL writer of sexual impropriety including one from a radio host.

One said, “he mashed his lips against my face and he stuck his tongue in my mouth so fast.’”

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and nearly half of democratic senators are pressuring Franken to resign, saying “enough is enough.”

Franken caved, giving a defiant speech in which he said, "I know in my heart that nothing I've done as a senator - nothing - has brought dishonor on this institution."

Since his announcement, Politico, citing un-named sources, reports at least four Senators are urging Franken to reconsider his decision.

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/1 ... /23318965/

Would anyone like to contribute their thoughts pro/con to Franken's resignation and departure from the Senate in light of the allegations against him? I'd like to see him stay. I don't know if that's possible at this point and I can think of good reasons why he'd follow through.

But still...this nags at me.

[_MeDotOrg]

In a lot of ways I feel Franken is the sacrifice the Democrats made to the God of Perception. The Democrats could not be seen as being soft on sexism in their own party, when they using the issue to attack the GOP.

Recently Corey Lewandowski was hit for a suit by a singer who claimed he pinched her butt. Even though I think Lewandowski is a bit of a dick, I have ambivalent feelings about this. On the one hand, good for her for standing up for her rights. But on the other hand, does this mean the best remedy will always be court? I wish there was a referee, or something less legally formal way to deal with the situation.

On the one hand, we want to condemn the behavior as unacceptable. On the other hand, the behavior being condemned was accepted for a long period of time. Not everyone changed immediately. What do we do with those people? To me, it's the line we dance in between no tolerance and intolerance.

In an earlier post, I compared the situation almost to truth and reconciliation commissions. There need to be lines of delineation drawn about appropriate behavior, especially in the workplace. But at the same time we are sexual beings, and we shouldn't let the abuse of the power dynamic blind us to the fact that not all sexual interaction can be classified as a power or political dynamic. Not every tryst at an office Christmas party occurred because of a power dynamic.

What do we do when our dogs are overly aggressive and start humping everything in sight? Castration. In certain societies this is done to rapists. Alas, we are human beings. I don't think Al Franken's manhood should be on the chopping block. But the very effective solution for male animal aggression emphasizes the deep physiological wellspring for male sexuality, aggression and dominance.

[_cafe crema]

On the other hand, the behavior being condemned was accepted for a long period of time.

I don't mean this as a challenge to the idea that it was accepted for a time, but I wonder about it's universal acceptance. I'm not sure I accept that all men viewed it as acceptable, or that those who did view it that way viewed it as applying to all the women around them. I have a vague feeling that there were unwritten rules about who did it, who they did it to and where it was done. This is based on my experience, who did and didn't do these types of things to me, and where they did or did not happen.