Posted on 12/10/2014 1:11:41 PM PST by Kaslin
This week, Rolling Stone printed an editor's note retracting one of the most highly praised pieces of investigative journalism in its history. That piece, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, alleged that several members of the University of Virginia fraternity Phi Kappa Psi, had raped a 19-year-old student named Jackie, including with foreign objects, as she lay on a floor covered with broken glass. The article resulted in the university suspending the fraternity's activities, and national outrage over the so-called "rape culture" on campus.
That rape culture supposedly leads to one in five women being sexually assaulted on campus -- a faulty statistic from a poll that didn't even ask women if they were raped or sexually assaulted, and instead defined sex while inebriated at any level as rape. With regard to reported rape, the federal government reports a rate of just 1.3 per 1,000 Americans. That is, of course, far too high. But it is not a rape culture by any plausible definition.
Nonetheless, the narrative of women as victims of brutish male society must be forwarded at all costs, for political purposes. If Americans are brutish sexists waiting to rape unsuspecting women, bigger government becomes a necessity. That's why President Obama has cited that one-in-five statistic, and suggested that America experiences "quiet tolerance of sexual assault."
In order to forward that narrative, all rape stories are treated as fact sans investigation of any kind. And so Jackie's story of gang rape received plaudits across the media landscape.
Then it fell apart.
The Washington Post quickly debunked the story. According to the Post, the fraternity says there was no event the night Jackie was allegedly raped, Jackie's friends "have not been able to verify key points in recent days," and one of the men named in Jackie's report stated that "he never met Jackie in person and never took her out on a date."
As the Rolling Stone report collapsed, members of the left jumped to defend Jackie. Sally Kohn of CNN.com tweeted that people should stop questioning Jackie's story: "While aspects of UVA rape story now in question, still unsettles me that pouncing by skeptics mirrored sort of doubt rape victims often face." Feminist Melissa McEwan wrote, "If Jackie's story is partially or wholly untrue, it doesn't validate the reasons for disbelieving her."
Under this logic, Atticus Finch was the villain in "To Kill a Mockingbird." After all, how dare he question the rape allegations of a victimized woman and defend Tom Robinson?
But for the left, it's narrative first, facts second.
The same holds true regarding allegations made by HBO star Lena Dunham, who wrote of her own alleged rape at the hands of an Oberlin "college Republican" named Barry. When it turned out that Barry, a readily identifiable person from Dunham's days at Oberlin, did not rape her, the media largely went silent; Dunham still has not spoken on the issue.
Narrative first. Facts second.
Here is the reality: All decent human beings believe that rape is evil. They also believe that false allegations of rape are wrong. These two positions are not mutually exclusive. They complement one another. False rape allegations do actual rape victims a tremendous disservice: to lump in false accusations of rape with true accusations of rape makes people more skeptical of rape victims generally, a horrible result. Rape should be taken seriously; rape accusations should be taken seriously. That means taking factual questions seriously, not merely throwing the word "rape" around casually, without evidence, and without regard for truth.
Lying about ANYTHING is “just dandy”, as long as it advances the agenda.
“instead defined sex while inebriated at any level as rape.”
Under that definition, I’ve been raped.
Facts don’t matter, anything that promotes the Left’s narrative is permissible.
The left also has no problem with men raping 13 year old girls as long as she gets an abortion if she gets pregnant.
That is one ugly beyotch.
Well as they say in NYC...
Here’s your Plan B pill honey, no need to tell mom and dad, just don’t wash it down with a big soda or have a cig after sex...
The left believes the feminazi & “professional victims” mantra that “rape victims would never lie about something so traumatic.”
Detectives know other wise.
That’s why there is an Eighth Commandment.
The Matthew Shepard case is a perfect example.
The War on Heterosexual Men continues!
“The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution.”
—David Horowitz, quoting unnamed SDS leader.
To the left, lying about rape is JUST AS EQUAL to actual rape.
given this whole Dunham and the string of fake rape and fake hatecrime crap perpetrated on all of us before this incident,
I’m beginning to believe there’s more behind the muslims’ treating women’s testimony as 1/2 as good as a man’s.
Women can cry and get lesser punishment or believed more because they can cry. They can lie more convincingly because they appear as helpless waifs if they ARE lying. Women are more likely to be considered mentally incompetent for committing terrible crimes men do not get called mentally incompetent at the time of their terrible crime. Because they’re women. How could a woman do something so terrible, deliberately if she wasn’t nuts? Men? Nope, he’s just evil.
Men can’t cry and get out of anything. Men can lie but most of the time they are not believed and still convicted. There is no paternal wiring that causes men to be sympathetic to other crying men. With women, there is.
far more likely to be viewed sympathetically as a victim and believed to be a victim than a guy. Look how everyone initially bought this holes-filled story.
A male freshman from an Ivy League school recently confided in me that he had been raped by nine female staff in the faculty lounge. He had been tricked into going there ostensibly to go over his Psychology 101 term paper, which was getting an “F” because it did not seem to sincerely support homosexual marriage.
When he arrived at the staff lounge, he was hit from behind with a softball bat. He crashed to the floor, breaking a glass table, and then he lost consciousness. But when he came-to, he found himself on the floor among the glass, being held down and raped by the nine Women’s Studies Department profs. He remembered some of their voices, and what they said, while they did it.
One of them named “Sandy” said, “Think gays don’t deserve equal rights? Try this one for size!”
One of them named Gretchen came at him with.....
(You get the point. I could write the Rolling Stone agitprop in my sleep.)
That is one of the kingpins of communism. There is no such thing as a lie if it benefits the state.
I hear banjos...
So, you take a bunch of young people who are mature in body but not yet in mind, move them out of parental control into a mostly unregulated environment, and allow them easy access to alcohol and each other, then act surprised when incidents occur - then bleat about a “rape culture” on campus. Liberals truly are completely insane.
That is why we are reading stories by feminists who say the facts are unimportant...the dreaded Patriarchy must be destroyed, and that is all that matters. These people, the rad-fems, are fascists.
Its not the facts that matter; its the seriousness of the charges.
Unless of course, the accused rapist is a liberal.
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