Rape and Sexual Assault in the News
For
May, 2019
U.K. Police Have a Message for Crime Victims: Hand Over Your Private Data
By Iliana Magra, April 29, 2019
The police in the UK want all accusers of rape to turn in their cell phones. “Police have a duty to pursue all reasonable lines of enquiry,” Assistant Commissioner Nick Ephgrave, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for criminal justice, said in a statement. “Those now frequently extend into the devices of victims and witnesses as well as suspects — particularly in cases where suspects and victims know each other.” I guess he means all those consensual rapes, you know, the ones Republican Senator Barry Hovis, the state senator from Missouri, told us about. I doubt if it will get anywhere. I’ll let you know if it does. Victim advocates are up in arms. Even fewer victims will come forward if this law goes into effect.
Swarthmore Fraternities Disband After Uproar Over ‘Rape Attic’ Documents
By Julie Turkewitz, May 1, 2019
The move comes after the release of more than 100 pages of internal documents in which members of Phi Psi discussed sexual misconduct. The documents were published in The Phoenix and Voices, both student-run newspaper on campus. In the papers, the fraternities bragged about sex with underage girls, the use of date-rape drugs and a place called the rape attic. Both fraternities “decided to disband and relinquish their houses.” I don’t know what to say. This keeps on happening.
Man Who Kept Girl In Dog Cage, Sexually Assaulted Her Won’t Serve Prison Time
May 1st, 2019
The FBI found a malnourished 17-year-old girl in a dogcage in an Atlanta suburb. She suffered from ringworm, had back problems and had been sexually assaulted. The perpetrator, Michael Wysolovski, pled guilty. He was given 10 years in prison with credit for the 8 months he had already served in detention. Superior Court Judge Timothy Hamil commented that Wysolovski was a “first offender” but that he was going to be tough. Wysolovski will serve the remaining 9 years, 8 months of his sentence on probation. He is on the sex offender list.
What does it take for an offender to actually be sent to jail? What does it take to have him seen as a criminal who has committed an actual crime? A sympathetic judge and a good defense lawyer.
‘This Is Unacceptable.’ Military Reports a Surge of Sexual Assaults in the Ranks
By Dave Philipps, May 2, 2019
“Women now make up only about 20 percent of the military, but are the targets of 63 percent of assaults, the survey found, with the youngest and lowest-ranking women most at risk.” The military are at the heart of masculinity and unfettered power destroys the morality of most men. To my eye, we need someone outside of the military to make decisions about what represents criminal behavior. The military cannot police itself.
How Larry Nassar ‘Flourished Unafraid For So Long’
by Maya Salam May 3, 2019
Maya Salam writes the newsletter, In Her Words, for the New York Times. I’m a subscriber and I recommend the newsletter she writes. In an article dated 5/3/18, she writes about how “A new HBO documentary explores the rise and fall of the disgraced Olympic doctor and the institutions that gave him access to girls.’ For years powerful men got away with whatever they wanted. Larry Nassar had intimate access. He was a monster posturing as an MD.
‘It’s disgusting’: Loopholes remain in North Carolina’s sexual assault laws. Advocates ask why.
by Erik Ortiz, May 11, 2019
You may not know this but in North Carolina it is legal to drug someone’s drink. House Bill 393 would make it illegal whether or not they are sexually assaulted. HB 393 passed the house on April 29th. Now it goes to the NC Senate. House bill 563 failed to get a hearing. HB 563 “would make it a crime if a person continues to have vaginal intercourse with a woman even after she revokes her initial consent and wants to stop.” North Carolina is the only state where women don’t have the protection of a law like HB 563.
Is Masculinity a Terrorist Ideology?
By Lacy M. Johnson, May 15, 2019
Excellent book review of No Visible Bruises: What we don’t know about Domestic Violence Can Kill Us by Rachel Louise Snyder, published May 7, 2019 by a woman writer who know the territory intimately. It’s a long read but worth it. The quote below lists some of the mass murderers of recent fame and the domestic crimes that proceeded them. Does one thing lead to another? I don’t know but it’s shows a certain inclination.
“Adam Lanza, for example, killed his mother in her bed before murdering 20 first-graders and five elementary school staff in 2012; Stephen Paddock was well-known among casino staff for berating his girlfriend in public before he opened fire on concert-goers on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017. James T. Hodgkinson, who shot Rep. Steve Scalise and four others at a baseball practice in Washington, DC, repeatedly abused his daughter and then punched his neighbor in the face when she threatened to call 911. Omar Mateen, who murdered 49 people at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016 had, years earlier, battered his wife and held her hostage, though he was never held criminally accountable for this. Men who are radicalized by masculine ideology terrorize their families, and a man who terrorizes his family is more likely to terrorize strangers.”
Missouri lawmaker apologizes for using term ‘consensual rapes’ in abortion bill debate
by Shelby Lin Erdman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk, May 17, 2019
Republican Missouri State Senator Barry Hovis spent 30 years on the Cape Girardeau Police Department. I feel it’s probably best if I allow Senator Hovis to explain his error in his own words. To clear up what he initially said, he explained that, “Most of my rapes were not the gentleman jumping out of the bushes that nobody ever met. That was 1 or 2 times out of hundred.
Most of them were date rapes or consensual rapes….”
That clears it all up. I have nothing to say. What will he say next?
They tried to use rape to silence women protesters. It didn’t work
By Nima Elbagir, Sheena McKenzie, Abdulgader Bashir, Salah Nasir and Salma Abdalaziz
An undated CNN World article Khartoum, Sudan, part of their ongoing Equal Series
More women than men hit the streets to protest the regime of Omar al-Bashir. So his regime decided to go after the women and sent this message to the troops,”Break the girls, because if you break the girls, you break the men.” Some women were taken to secret sites where they were photographed naked. Others were dragged into vehicles and raped. Husbands who found out, divorced their wives and fathers tried to beat their daughters into submission for going to the protests. But women kept returning. They made up 70% of the protesters in the streets. Click the link to read the whole story. It makes me proud to be a woman. Would I be as strong? I don’t know but I doubt it. The women of Khartoum have my admiration.
The rapes haunting a community that shuns the 21st Century
This is a curious story from a Mennonite town in Manitoba, Bolivia. Potentially 200 women were raped in their homes. Rapists used a well known drug used by farmers to anesthetize bulls prior to castration. They sprayed it in the windows anesthetizing the entire family then broke in and raped the women and girls.
Mennonites don’t consider non virgins to be marriageable so the girls were afraid to report the abuses. The rapists were originally caught and imprisoned.
When counseling was offered the Bishop of Manitoba didn’t understand, “Why would they need counseling if they weren’t even awake when it happened?”
This is a common misconception. The rape memories are still recorded in the body even if the victim doesn’t remember the rape in an actual sense.
Sailors Created ‘Rape List’ Aboard Navy’s 2nd Sub to Integrate Women
by Gina Harkins, May 17, 2019, Military.com
This incident is a perfect example of why the military is incapable of policing itself in the area of sexual abuse. “A “rape list” was shared by members of the guided-missile submarine Florida’s Gold crew, where investigators found “lewd and sexist comments and jokes were tolerated, and trust up and down the chain of command was nonexistent.” That’s according to a 74-page investigation into the misconduct, obtained exclusively by Military.com through a Freedom of Information Act request.”
These Victims had to Sue to get the Police to Investigate
By Valeriya Safronova and Rebecca Halleck, May 23, 2019
“Evidence so neglected it grew mold. Calls to the authorities for help that went unanswered. Witnesses and victims who were never interviewed. These are just a handful of the claims that sexual assault survivors are making against law enforcement in courts around the country.”
Police tend to believe men when they say the sex was consensual. Just look at the ease with which Republican Missouri State Senator Barry Hovis, who was a sheriff, uses the term, consensual rape. Consensual rape is a contradiction in terms. It’s indicative of the attitude of many men who seem unable to tell the difference between sex and rape.
My Rapist Apologized
by Michele Alexander, May 23, 2019
I imagined myself having to share this with my own young daughter. This is a heart wrenching story and all too common. Michele Alexander was raped and her rapist apologized. When she told him she was pregnant, he asked, “Are you sure it’s mine?” Those were harsh words to Michele’s young ear. Men have an adversarial view of women. If that man’s mind had been where it should have been, he would have wondered how he could give her pleasure, in other words, how to share the experience. It wasn’t. He was selfish. His mind was on his own pleasure. He didn’t care how his victim felt. I commend him for apologizing but it should never have happened in the first place.
The world over, people in crisis suffer sexual violence – this scourge must end
by Natalia Kanem and Mark Lowcock, May 23, 2019
“The UN, governments, the International Committee of the Red Cross and civil society organisations are coming together in Norway this week for a first-of-its-kind conference on ending sexual and gender-based violence in humanitarian crises.”
Three steps will be addressed at the conference.
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- Survivors caught up in genocide, war and the migration crises must be helped.
- Focus on prevention and gender inequality, which is the root-cause of gender based violence.
- Hold perpetrators to account.
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Harvey Weinstein and accusers ‘reach tentative $44m compensation deal’
by Andrew Pulver, May 24, 2019, The Guardian
There’s something about Harvey Weinstein that I dislike intensely. He embodies the image I have of a player. But he’s historically important because they actually brought him down, to his knees dare I say. But he began the #metoo movement and that’s large, just like the settlement, $44 million to settle 14 lawsuits. YAY! It makes me happy. It’s progress. Think about it. Some sources say 70 women, some 88 women, came forward with complaints. It makes me want to sing! That’s wrong I guess. I shouldn’t take pleasure in someone else’s pain. I’m sorry. Tee hee. I am. I’m sorry. I’m.really sorry. Tee, hee, hee.
America’s ‘best first job’? My story of sexual harassment at McDonald’s
by Brittany Hoyos, May 25, 2019
I call this the typical sweetheart to whore story. It can happen quickly. First the manager is complimenting her on how she looks in her clothes, then he gives her a ride and tries for a kiss. She says no and keeps saying no. Suddenly there are no more compliments. Instead she is called a “ho”, “whore”, and a “homewrecker”. Brittany complained. Management called a meeting where at 16 years old she has to face down her abuser in front of two other male managers. She is told to “let it go.” Will life ever change. Darn!