Washingtonpost.com:

CHARLOTTESVILLE — A University of Virginia student’s harrowing description of a gang rape at a fraternity, detailed in a recent Rolling Stone article, began to unravel Friday as interviews revealed doubts about significant elements of the account. The fraternity issued a statement rebutting the story, and the magazine apologized for a lapse in judgment and backed away from the article.

Jackie, a U-Va. junior, said she was ambushed and raped by seven men at the Phi Kappa Psi house during a date party in 2012, allegations that tore through the campus and pushed the elite public school into the epicenter of a national discussion about how universities handle sex-assault claims. Shocking for its gruesome details, the account described Jackie enduring three hours of successive rapes, an ordeal that left her blood-spattered, scarred and emotionally devastated.

The U-Va. fraternity where the attack was alleged to have occurred has said it has been working with police and has concluded that the allegations are untrue. Among other things, the fraternity said there was no event at the house the night the attack was alleged to have happened.

A group of Jackie’s close friends, who are advocates at U-Va. for sex-assault awareness, said they believe that something traumatic happened to her, but they also have come to doubt her account. They said that details have changed over time and that they have not been able to verify key points in recent days. For example, an alleged attacker that Jackie identified to them for the first time this week — a junior in 2012 who worked with her as a university lifeguard — was actually the name of a student who belongs to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi.

Whether every detail of Jackie’s account is correct or not is really irrelevant. Sexual misconduct is a national problem and it needs to stop. Colleges and universities need to revamp how they handle these cases as well as how they report the cases to law enforcement.

Something happened to this young woman. She is obviously scarred and damaged from her ordeal. I have no doubt that the media used her and probably misreported what she told them. I sincerely hope that Rolling Stone’s recanting her story doesn’t keep colleges from handling sexual attacks swiftly and severely. I hope it doesn’t keep victims from reporting their injuries. Just because Rolling Stone has recanted its story doesn’t mean this young woman wasn’t raped and traumatized.

148 Thoughts to “Rolling Stone recants, issues an apology”

  1. Rick Bentley

    “Something happened to this young woman. She is obviously scarred and damaged from her ordeal. ”

    That is not necessarily so. Some people are born crazy, and some people have a deep need to be a victim.

  2. Cargosquid

    The Board should do two things.

    A) Sue Rolling Stone for not checking the facts
    B) Fire the director for not checking the facts.

  3. Kelly_3406

    This case reminds me of the false rape allegations against the Duke lacrosse team several years ago. There was a rush to judgement and a presumption of guilt by the university and the North Carolina district attorney. Just as the fraternities were suspended at UVa, the entire lacrosse season was cancelled at Duke. It was later determined that no crime whatsoever took place.

    The real lesson is that universities are ill-equipped to treat both parties fairly. The accused men are always presumed to be guilty in these high-profile cases.

  4. Steve Thomas

    I am going to make a prediction: As the “onion” of this story gets peeled, we will learn that “Jackie”, whose close campus friends have been described in the press as “anti-rape advocates”, just wanted to fit in, with her peer group, so she made up a story. The story started out as “I was raped at a frat party”. When her friends tried to be supportive, she talked about it more, and made up details. Wanting more and more affirmations, the story got more fantastic. Then the media got involved, and the fantastic story went viral, then collapsed under cross examination in the court of public opinion. Nothing about her story could be verified. Not one bit.

    Now, I am not saying this girl has never, ever been the victim of some kind of unwanted sexual advance, assault, molestation, or rape. However, I predict this incident will be found to have been a total and complete fabrication. Much damage has been done: to the school. To those accused. To the credibility of all the media outlets who sensationalized this story. To those who are trying to fight against real assaults, to actual victims and although self-inflicted, to Jackie. People know who Jackie is. More people will want to find out. She will likely be sued, and even if she isn’t, she is in for a very rough time. She will also be permanently etched in the narrative, whenever a future case like this happens. Tawana Brawly, Crystal Manigult, and now, Jackie X.

  5. @Rick Bentley
    Yes, some people are born crazy. Why do you assume this young woman is crazy?

    Why do you assume that no one at UVA would behave in such a heinous manner?

    I don’t personally know anyone that happened to at UVA. What I do know are some of the stories that have gone on there for years. A culture of sexual entitlement does exist at that institute of higher learning. With everyone? Of course not. with some? Yes. I also believe it goes on at most colleges and universities in this country.

    I have already said a friend of mine in college was gang raped at another school. She got drunk at a fraternity party and passed out. A few people took a turn. That frat house was shut down for at least a year. Sorry dudes, it happens.

  6. Steve Thomas

    “Just because Rolling Stone has recanted its story doesn’t mean this young woman wasn’t raped and traumatized.”

    But what if it does? What if the story is a complete fabrication? Here’s the problem: you want here to be telling the truth. It supports the “war on women” narrative, that a “rape culture” exists within any institution with a large male population, be it colleges, or the military. I don’t buy it. Never have. I went to a college when it was all male, a giant frat, if you will. I spent 14 years in the military, half of them post-tailhook. I am not foolish and say that harassment, assaults, and rapes don’t happen. They’ve happened as long as men and women have walked the earth. I just don’t buy the “rape culture” cry. I’ve never seen anything to support this, and frankly I am disgusted with this whole campaign of bashing an entire gender…mine. Yes, there are bad apples. Studies have concluded that 90% of crimes of a sexual nature are committed by 6% of the population, male AND female. Bad apples that should be dealt with harshly.

    1. Steve, this isn’t really what the “war on women” is about. It has nothing to do with it. The war on women is political. Having said that, the problem now seems to be that Rolling Stone was all to willing to publish a story and then a week later they throw Jackie under the bus, for something that they really should have checked out first.

      If anyone has a lawsuit, it is Phi Psi. They are the ones who have been harmed if the story didn’t happen. UVA isn’t harmed. Any harm they have done to themselves.

      Now what I don’t know is how the girls act at the parties now. My brother, who has spent his entire adult life involved with college life (English prof.) says that you don’t run into this at the sororities where he is. That is because there are house mothers. Why? The parents insist on it. Apparently sororities and house mothers still exist to make sure the girls don’t date and marry the wrong “types.” I thought it sounded horribly archaic but what do I know. I didn’t even go to school where there were sororities. I also went to an all female college. I don’t know that segregated by gender schools matter in this discussion. maybe they do. I just don’t know.

      I think you are too quick to dismiss her story rather than faulting RS.

  7. @Cargosquid
    Fire what director? Why? How can you check facts when the facts aren’t revealed to you.

    What good would it do to sue Rolling Stone? Do you really believe that Jackie had nothing happened to her? How about those other women who stepped forward?

    I knew something was off the first time I read the story. Something wasn’t quite jelling. My fault was in the reporting–not with the girl.

    If you have ever been a victim of any kind of assault, (sexual or otherwise) the details become very fuzzy. That part isn’t what sent my cred-dar off. There has been a culture of disrespect for females in many of those fraternities since probably before my time. I don’t know about Phi Psi but I do know about some of the other houses.

    An example or two of the general disrespect: There used to be ass biters at the many of the houses. Girls would be dancing with their dates or whoever and some clown would sneak up and bite their ass–hard….enough to draw blood. Is that the same as rape? No. Its disrespectful though. I just remembered that. I had forgotten.

  8. @Steve Thomas

    Do you mean Crystal Mangum of Duke Lacross player fame now convicted of murder? If not, then I don’t know who you are talking about.

    Your story might be true. Its really a crap shoot for both of us. We don’t know the girl or anything about her really. It’s hard to say. I believe something happened to her.

    Regardless of whether the story is real or contrived, there are a whole bunch of other people coming forward and we need to listen to them. UVA needs to clean up its act about reporting sexual attacks as does every other institute of higher learning in this state. They need to clean up what goes on at the fraternity houses and they need to put some teeth into what happens to those who are too sexually aggressive.

    Most of all they need to regulate the amount of underage binge drinking that goes on on campus. That’s where it all starts. The entire corner (retail social hub that is “off campus) is lax about ID. Most students have fake IDs. Most frat houses have parties where people they don’t even know come to get wasted. It is a school where one’s worth is evaluated by how much one drinks and how big of an ass someone makes of one’s self while drinking.

    Puking in the bushes is a red bade of courage, not a behavior of shame.

  9. @Kelly_3406

    Kelly, I have a boy and a girl child so I can see both sides of this issue. It really shouldn’t be incumbent on a young male to prove he isn’t a rapist.

    However, I was also a girl who dated at UVA both as a townie and as a college student. I wasn’t allowed to date students until I was a senior unless they were locals going there. Wonder why that was? My parents were both UVA graduates. They knew.

    There is a culture of sexual entitlement at that school. I can think of no other way to express it. I never had anything like that happen to me at UVA. However, I did get slammed in a wall for saying “take me back to where I am staying.” I have had objects thrown at me for saying no. I have had to take a cab back to my lodging for saying no. Just real rude crap.

    The attempted date rape that I did experience was compliments of a 2nd looey out of Quantico. Thank goodness it was the days of girls wearing “panty girdles” to keep their stockings up. That and having evil, swift kicking knees saved me.

    That experience was very scary. I was 19 years old. I didn’t think I was going to be killed but it was still an attempt at forced sex. What the hell is wrong with people?

    No, I told no one other than friends. I can tell you why. It was embarrassing and I had also gone to the drive in. (remember those) I had been out with the guy before a few times. We were drinking …not excessively but some and some mild making out.

    That really wasn’t what I wanted my parents to hear about. You know whose fault it would have been. Mine. (drive in, drinking, and what they would have called “necking.”)

    I wasn’t even smart enough to go to the dean and have Mr. 2nd looey banned from campus. Back in those days attempted rape wasn’t even something you talked about, especially if you knew the person. About the only rape you were even allowed to mention out loud was stranger rape.

  10. Starryflights

    The local police are investigating and will determine the facts. I am confident of that. Meanwhile I support the university’s decision to suspend Greeks

  11. Steve Thomas

    @Moon-howler
    Yes, Crystal Magnum…stupid keyboard on the smartphone.

  12. Steve Thomas

    Moon, I agree that the colleges need to regulate the “party” atmosphere aboard campus, or at off-campus school functions. Beyond that, it really is a matter of kids with too much freedom, and not enough sense, making bad decisions, which lead to bad outcomes. Yes, there are true predators in any population that need crushing. Crush them, when they are found and proven such beyond doubt. But, in cases of false accusation, make these people account for this too. This includes the media, advocacy groups, and Al Sharpton.

  13. Cargosquid

    @Moon-howler
    There were plenty of facts.

    She could have checked if there had been a party. She could have found “Drew” the lifeguard. Etc. There were any number of facts in the story that could have been checked using a little deduction.

  14. Cargosquid

    Starryflights :
    The local police are investigating and will determine the facts. I am confident of that. Meanwhile I support the university’s decision to suspend Greeks

    Why do you support their right to do it in THIS case when the Greeks did not do anything wrong?

  15. Rick Bentley

    No one doubts that rapes happen. I assume that no one doubts that false accusations happen also.

    The RS story perpetuated an idea that it happened systematically, and that large numbers of peoples were more or less okay with it. Also that some frat house was at will leading women to darkened rooms, overpowering them by force, and then peer pressuring young nerds to rape them with bottles. It’s a very weird fantasy and was not believable.

  16. @Steve Thomas

    You are assuming that “Jackie” wasn’t sexually assaulted. I don’t think that is a fair assumption to make. Too many other women students, both current and past, have come forwards with similar stories.

    I think there is some sort of legal discrepancy in the Rolling Stone article and that’s enough for them to throw Jackie under the bus. Don’t forget the fear factor and how cruel human beings can be to one and other. She might have been doing a misdirect rather than telling a lie.

    I say I feel 75% sure something happened and that for the most part her story is spot on.

    Check out the words to From Ruby Road to Vinegar Hill verses from the original story and then research other verses. Check out the mural in Cabell Hall. That should be enough to solidify a culture that really devalues women. (not war…that’s political)

  17. Rick Bentley

    Dunham (whose show I still like very much) has a lot of explaining to do, also. It’s pretty obvious that she took some sexual encounter that in retrospect she didn’t entirely enjoy and spun it into a rape fantasy, then published it in a book as her account of something real. Whether she likes it or not she’s riding point on this. Eminent example of a woman who WANTS to have been raped, and spins a story.

  18. @Cargosquid

    Drew the lifeguard was a ficticious name. I am not saying that the reporter did due diligence.

    Read about liabilities here.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/12/06/libel-law-and-the-rolling-stone-uva-alleged-gang-rape-story/

  19. @Cargosquid
    Cargo, listen to yourself. You don’t know whether the Greeks did anything wrong or not.

    You weren’t there. Have you ever even been on those grounds? Seriously,you believe what you want to believe and cherry pick “facts.”

    The truth is, no one knows the facts.

    The cops have every right to investigate the situation because the University called them in on the case.

    I get this feeling that the males on this blog are in some sort of denial about members of their own gender.

  20. Rick Bentley

    Moon, you’re not seeing straight on this.

    Rolling Stone published something that strained credulity, without fact checking. They are a rag.

    Jackie, IF SHE EVEN EXISTS AS WRITTEN, has not been thrown under any bus. She presumably told the story to create a dramatic article.

    I’m not in favor of devaluing women. Nor was anyone that I remember, that I went to college with.

  21. Steve Thomas

    “I think you are too quick to dismiss her story rather than faulting RS.”

    Well, when not a single aspect of her story is verifiable, and some demonstrably false, I don’t think it too much to be skeptical. Conversely, in the same environment, nothing substantiated and much demonstrably false, why are you so quick to conclude that “something MUST have happened” ?. Rolling Stone is negligent. So are the rest of the media outlets who ran with this story, initially.

  22. Rick Bentley

    Am I in denial about male behavior? I don’t think so. Most men could not ever engage in the behavior described in the RS rape fantasy. You might find two gutys someowhere who could do that together. A whole frat house full? Hardly.

    The world young people live in today is different from the one you grew up in, and the one I grew up in. I don’t think there’s an issue in America with “rape culture”. Rape happens, but i think that every man understands that if he rapes someone, there’s a large chance he’ll soon be trying not to get raped himself in a jailhouse shower.

    Men aren’t, mostly, capable of rape. If you look at porn – in this day and age, not Hustler cartoons from 30-40 years ago – you won’t see rape fantasies. You’ll see teen girl fantasies. You’ll see lots of coercive fantasies not involving force. You’ll see rough sex. You’ll see women called names, you’ll see women treated as objects to the point that you’ll have to laugh or have to shudder in revulsion. But you won’t see rape scenarios.

  23. Rick Bentley

    In this day and age, with porn protected more or less as free speech as long as everyone is over 18), you’ll see women called every name in the book and made complicit in their own degradation. You’ll see fantasies about teen girls and teachers, stepfathers, fathers, grandfathers. You’ll see the sex acts become more and more baroque, intended to reduce sex to a commodity and females to servants. You’ll see the male id, the desire to posess and dominate females, run rampant.

    You can see female feet crushing animals. You can see transexdual porn, or transvestite porn. wrestling porn. All genres on the redtubes and youporns, to look at or to ignore. You can see (staged) incest porn. You can see what you want. You can see rough sex. Will you see “rape” porn? Almost never. The male desire to dominate and own women stops short of that, for 99.9999% of us.

    Rape happens. Does it do anyone a favor to induge Rolling STone or Lena Dunham their bizarre fantasies of nerds with bottles, or Republican rapists known for sex so rough it sprays blood onto walls? No. Not at all. It’s something created by females, to fill their own psychological need to be victims. It’s at least as sick as any category we could find on redtube.

    BTW I’m 49 and don’t look at much porn anymore. Someone 25 years younger than me would be able to make this same argument more eloquently, if they cared to even bother.

  24. @Rick Bentley
    And ass-biting isn’t weird?

    I know that happened. I saw it with my own two eyes.

    In the good old days, women/girls weren’t allowed on the second floor when fraternity parties too place. They also had house mothers who attended the parties as ‘enforcers.’ I think that the house mothers went the way of the dodo bird.

    I know for a fact that I was shoved into a brick wall and hit my head over NO. I know I had something thrown at me for much the same reason. I call that feeling a sense of sexual entitlement.

    Look, I wasn’t a hot little number. I have had all sorts of experiences that involved varying degrees of violence when some male was told no. Yea, I said no a lot but that was also in the days when NO was the default. I just think that there are a lot of young men now and then who felt sexual favors should be taken if not offered.

    Since this topic has come up, I have remembered all sorts of unacceptable behavior that I had to deal with, just because I was a girl and I dated. Almost all the unacceptable behavior was from college age boys. I don’t recall having that problem with high school boys. They were respectiful because…. they were on their own home turf and they sure didn’t want anyone’s parents coming after them.

  25. Rick Bentley

    I may have overstated my argument. There is a “rough/violent” catagory on xvideos.

    I’d edit those posts if I could to make a less forceful argument.

    But I stand by the belief that the RS story was not believable, and is itself a weird sexual fantasy. Some women do make up rape stories. Is it 5% of rape claims? 50%? i would have no idea.

    If the story involves blood on the walls or nerds with bottles, though, safe bet it’s invented.

  26. @Steve Thomas
    Because I know, existentially, the culture of that town and that university. I read the testimonies of a lot of other women who stepped forward.

    I know what some young men are like at that age.
    I know what experiences I have had. I was not promiscuous–aat least not by the standards of the day. My grandmother probably would have thought I was because according to her, people didn’t hold hands until they were engaged.

  27. Rick Bentley

    I’m certainly not going to argue about what happened to you, and I’m sorry that happened.

    And I understand that women have a struggle in life that men don’t.

    I’m just saying, the RS story and Dunham’s story, are not believable. And do the larger issues a disservice.

  28. Rick Bentley

    I think that women are significantly more empowered now than decades ago, to the point that if they get raped, they’ll generally report it.

    Whether I’m right or wrong about that, fake stories do no good for anyone.

    1. I agree, fake stories do no one any good. If I find out that Jackie wasn’t assaulted, I will really think she is a sick puppy.

      Yes, women do report fake rapes but usually there is a reason. It’s usually cover up for behavior the woman doesn’t want to admit to.

      I just don’t get the cover up feeling on this one.

      Let me first off say, most of my family are UVA graduates. So I am pretty much attacking from the inside. I roller skated around the Rotunda, and around Cabell Hall as a kid. I fell through a lot of bleechers as a kid because my parents still attended a lot of the athletic events there. I have posted pics of my dad.

      Now that I have posted my UVA lineage, I am here to tell you, there are some arrogant, pompous little self-absorbed little pricks on that campus. There always have been and there always will be. I have no trouble at all believing Jackie’s story.

      I think calling it a culture of rape is really not accurate. The problem there goes deeper than the problems with females. There is a sub culture there that preys on the individual’s need for acceptance. Many of us would slap that culture aside and not care, regardless of how powerful its talons were. Other people have the need to fit in that allows them to participate or be victimized by some of the hideous hazing, (one I know about still makes me sick to think about) bing drinking, and activities that are simply unacceptable in a civilized society.

      I expect what I am speaking of is prevalent on other campuses also but I can only speak to UVA.

      Sorry, I can’t leave this alone. Would Hannah Graham be alive today if this culture didn’t exist? Hard to say. Would she be alive today if Liberty and Christopher Newport had reported her alleged killer to the cops? I am betting yes.

  29. Rick Bentley

    As to keeping old “traditions” and songs alive that have shockingly negative elements to them, you know how that goes. Tomorrow at 1:00 I’ll be watching my favorite football team play, the Washington Kikes, I mean Coloreds, I mean Japs, I mean Redskins.

  30. Rick Bentley

    Hey, what do you know! That made it through the content filter.

  31. Rick Bentley

    I’ve been talking in terms of frat houses – not believing the RS story. In terms of males constrained by our laws and institutions.

    Now, if you take this out the military and to military contractors overseas … I could believe stories there.

  32. Rick Bentley

    The RS story’s author has gone dark on Twitter – https://twitter.com/sabrinarerdely

    Lena Dunham’s gone quiet for a couple of days too. Hopefully she’s not jamming pencils in her ear. Again, I like her, but she’s going to have to come clean on this one.

  33. Rick Bentley

    “And ass-biting isn’t weird?”

    Hey look, we’re weird to you. I get it. We have this deep connection with our mothers. Then subsequently we want to own women and control them like toys or dolls. And, we did for many thousands of years. Still do, in much of the world. The whole thing’s like a bizarre attempt to become God, to control or to own the mother figure.

    But you ladies can be weird too. Some of you hold life together pretty well, navigate the strange waters of life honorably. But more than a few of you are chasing after the idea of being taken care of, manipulating a man to take care of you daddy-style. Chasing intimacy with the father figure, looking for some big bright shiny unconditional love, desperately trying to stave off the coldness and bleakness of life by manipulating men towards bigger and bigger ends. And playing the victim card at will – getting weepy, shading stories to become a victim – to get attention, to get that attention that you always craved from daddy but didn’t get enough of. It happens.

    The sad thing is, even the small set of human beings who experience the thing that so many of us strive for subconsciously – f***ing your mother or father – only become MORE screwed up by it, and look for more and bigger versions of that sensation.

    Human sexuality is a huge mess. Today’s young people increasingly seperate sex from romance. And are increasingly less romantic, and with less pretense that relationships can be permenent. Far be it from me to tell them that they’re doing the wrong thing. Human sexuality got us to propogate, fulfilled its evolutionary purpose. But it’s messy, comical, and sometimes tragic.

  34. Kelly_3406

    @Moon-howler

    I am sorry that those things happened to you. My point is that sexual/criminal assault needs to be handled by the police rather than by universities. Imperfect as they are, the police are more likely to investigate incidents professionally and fairly. The universities should develop partnerships with the police so as to encourage and make it easy for victims to report incidents right after they occur. The universities must then cooperate but remain neutral as the justice system grinds through the process.

    The real responsibility of the universities should be to discourage the root causes that make people vulnerable to these incidents. You hit the target in a previous post — the strong need for acceptance by some people. This desire for acceptance makes otherwise well adjusted people vulnerable to exploitation by predators. I acknowledge that young women are particularly vulnerable, but it probably affects men as well.

    Universities could play a positive role by increasing awareness about this type of manipulation and exploitation without making it so gender specific.

    1. Thank you, Kelly. I didn’t reveal personal stories to say poor me. Most of those things I had forgotten about until these stories came out. I have been particularly bothered since Hannah Graham was abducted, on so many different levels, including her own neglect with her own safety.

      Let’s take what you said a little further. What compels young men to go through some of the repulsive, dehumanizing hazing stunts, just so they can join a fraternity? What part of wanting to fit in makes some of these kids drink to the point of blackout, barfing in the bushes? How is that fitting in? Apparently it is.

      I find the entire thing disturbing. I agree about bringing the police in. I mean the real police, not the campus police.

  35. Cargosquid

    @Moon-howler
    No..I don’t know if the Greeks did anything wrong and apparently NEITHER DOES THE COLLEGE. Yet.. because of this unchecked, fraudulent story, the director penalized all of the Greek societies.

    1. They were put on hold for a month. I think time out is in order. They need to come up with a plan to guarantee everyone’s safety. You see it as punishment. I see it as a time of reflection.

  36. Steve Thomas

    @Moon-howler
    “Would Hannah Graham be alive today if this culture didn’t exist? Hard to say. Would she be alive today if Liberty and Christopher Newport had reported her alleged killer to the cops? I am betting yes.”

    You have proven my argument. You have manufactured a “culture” and a strawman to go with it. The accused in the Hannah Graham case appears to have been a serial rapist. In both of his earlier college cases, it was the victims who declined to press charges. The authorities were prepared to move forward, but the victims were not coopertive. The schools used the only power they had: expulsion. Then he assaulted a woman in Fairfax, and perhaps kidnapped and killed a girl from a metalica concert, now we have the Graham case, neither of which had anything to do with UVA, beyond the fact that the victims happened to be students. So, we have a criminally deviant running around, whose crimes escalated to eventually involve murder. How is this a “culture”. Culture implies a goup of individuals sharing a common set of ideas, values, and actions. “Rape Culture”, “war on women” “climate change”, “white privilege”…all tripe, meant to fractionalize society. Straight out of Das Kapital, Marx’s manifesto , Mao’s little red book, and a “Rules for Radicals” cliff-notes edition.

    1. Steve, I am not the one using the term “rape culture” and I also have said clearly this is not what is meant by “war on women.” War on women is controlling women by political action.

      My point is that all of these problems can be related to underage binge drinking. I have made a few sub points also.

      I don’t think women (people) should be able to accuse someone of rape and then have it go no further. All that was done was to take a problem and release it onto the rest of society. It’s all inner related.

      The closest thing I can say about a culture is that UVA and many other colleges have men in attendance that seem to surround themselves with a culture of sexual entitlement. I don’t think students come to Charlottesville thinking they are entitled but I think they quickly learn to think that way.

  37. Rick Bentley

    I wouldn’t agree with that. A society, say America circa 1980, could be accused of rape culture if it had magazines widely distributed that made light of rape and even celebrated it (I’m thinking of “Hustler”). And when juries would frequently let rapists off the hook because of the way the woman was dressed. When people would say out loud that if a woman was dressed a certain way, she was “asking for it”.

    I don’t perceive modern-day America the same way though.

  38. Rick Bentley

    From wikipedia – “Rape culture is a concept that examines a culture in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality.[1][2] Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, or refusing to acknowledge the harm of certain forms of sexual violence that do not conform to certain stereotypes of stranger or violent rape.”

    That’s America, 40-50 years ago.

    1. I don’t believe rape is pervasive. We aren’t all Vikings, for heavens sake. If rape ever got pervasive, there would be some dead rapists because women would unite and kill them all.

  39. Wolve

    After reading this exchange, I feel compelled to announce that I have never bitten a woman’s ass. Or anybody’s ass , for that matter.

    I must have lived a very cloistered life.

    1. I think it went out of style. I have never seen it done anywhere but UVA. Maybe it is I who is cloistered.

  40. Wolve

    In any case, my congrats to the WaPo for working like true journalists to examine in depth the alleged facts in the Rolling Stone article.

  41. I have finally decided what sent my spider senses tingling on this story–not Jackie. Jackie has been traumatized in some way. Reporter bias. I could feel it. Her bias showed rather than getting a sense that she had spent time in Charlottesville and had gotten to know the community and the university. Some of what she wrote about was rubber stamped….not wrong, mind you but cookie cutter and pre-determined.

    I just couldn’t put my finger on it until tonight.

  42. Kelly_3406

    There is another thing that bothers me about this debate: the definition of rape culture as the expectation that rape is common place and so women need to defend themselves, i.e. as inferred from the third paragraph of this link.

    http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/11/25/uva_gang_rape_allegations_in_rolling_stone_not_surprising_to_one_associate.html

    Self defense and personal security in my view are extensions of good citizenship. Nothing about human nature has changed to suggest that prudent precautions are no longer required. There is a reason that we lock our doors at night.

    I work very hard to teach my daughter to avoid placing herself in defenseless positions. There is a ALWAYS a subset of people that does not abide by the norms of behavior and can revert to predatory violence if given the opportunity. If she is alone with someone (and/or no one can hear her scream) and completely dependent on someone’s goodwill for her well being, then she will have put herself in a very bad position. She is very strong and a good athlete, but she needs to know how easy it would be for someone to overpower her, particularly a lust-crazed young man. My daughter of course thinks that her friends are above suspicion, but I try to instill the ‘trust but verify’ philosophy of Reagan in her.

    I hope she heeds my advice on at least this one thing.

  43. Smartest thing anyone has said:

    (WaPo)

    But Tommy Reid, the president of U-Va.’s Inter-Fraternity Council, said Saturday that he had other concerns. Reid said he wants to keep attention locked onto efforts to reform the Greek system and the university as a whole to stop sexual violence.

    “My biggest fear is that students and the rest of the community will struggle over the minutiae of the specific Rolling Stone article and discontinue the momentum toward addressing the issue of rape on college campuses,” said Reid, 21, a senior.

  44. Rick Bentley

    “discontinue the momentum toward addressing the issue of rape on college campuses”

    I was in college 30 years ago and it was pretty darned clear at that point that rape was wrong and that if you raped someone in any real way you would be prosecuted. I really think that a lot of the people who talk about this type of “momentum” are hoping to find some more rapes to have occurred, to validate their worldview.

    1. Rick, maybe you were just in a more civilized part of the country. It wasn’t commonplace but there were guys who forced themselves on girls and I already talked about my friend who was raped at a men’s college near Richmond. That frat house was shut down for a year.

      I think most men know/knew that rape is just wrong. There are some, however, who get carried away with the moment and have egos and courage bolstered by alcohol. Then there are the 1% or so who really are sexual predators.

  45. Rick Bentley

    I argue that it’s less than 1%.

    But, you never know who’s a Bill Cosby out there.

    1. We also don’t know that Bill Crosby is really guilty. How could THAT many women have kept something like that to themselves? It makes no sense. Its sort f like finding out that Santa Claus is secretly a pervert.

      I think 1% is a conservative estimate if we are talking about men being capable of forced sex. By forced sex, lets define that as genital contact.

      Rick, I think there are more than you think out there. I am not speaking of stranger rape. That is something different. Let’s keep my statement to include “social forced sex.” I feel confident that my numbers on that are conservative at best.

      Maybe those numbers have “improved” over the years because there isn’t as much NO running around as there used to be. I realize that sexual mores change over the years and that people are more likely to experiment sexually than they were in my day. But geez! I must have known them all.

  46. Steve Thomas

    Well, it looks like “Jackie” may have been outed, and now the focus will shift to her. What has been released so far paints the narrative of a “rape – obsessed young woman, who smiles in her anti-rape activism social media photos, currently taking anti-depressants, who never felt like she measured up to her father’s expectations”. Whichever media narrative eventually proves closer to truth, victim or mentally-troubled, I hope people remember that she is someone’s daughter and sister.

    1. Where all that psycho stuff coming from?

      I am sitting here thinking the reporter probably took great advantage of a very vulnerable, perhaps scarred young woman. I am not so sure the alternate sexual scenario is one bit better than the one we all read about in RS. (offered by “Andy”)

      I hope people remember the she is someone’s daughter and sister also. Throw in granddaughter also.

      I am not ready to write her off as a liar and a media hog. Anyone who has ever dealt with the press knows that the press is rarely your friend, regardless of which face they put on. Most press members want their story, regardless of what they have to do or how much they end up selling you out. Its just very much of a scorpion/frog thing. It’s just what they do.

      I expect upon careful investigation, we will find out that Jackie was lead down the yellow brick road by the reporter. Does anyone else notice that RS has been remarkably quiet about her?

  47. Steve Thomas

    “I expect upon careful investigation, we will find out that Jackie was lead down the yellow brick road by the reporter. Does anyone else notice that RS has been remarkably quiet about her?”

    From what I’ve read (and I offer this with caution), is last summer, the editors decided it would be great/interesting/compelling to do a story on campus rape. They assigned their reporter, who began to reach out to Ivy League schools, and other colleges and universities of note. She was looking for victims, so she contacted those student-advocates (my guess, she found them on social-media), and connected with Jackie. She met with Jackie, and heard her story. As the story was being written, it became more and more sensationalized. Jackie was to be an anonymous straw-woman, and the story would be told. They lit a fuse, and the story blew up.

    If there is such a thing as “journalistic malpractice” RS is guilty of it. This girl rightly or wrongly, is going to be thrown to the wolves. I say “rightly”, in that she made some powerful (fantastic) allegations and accusations against individuals and organizations, and if they prove false, will have caused great damage. Great damage to RS (self-inflicted, perhaps), UVA, the Greeks, the particular frat, “Drew”, her date, and mostly to actual victims of sexual assault. I say “wrongly”, in that from accounts, she wanted to back out of the story, and most of all, she just might have been assaulted, at some time, under different circumstances, and was pressured/coached or otherwise misled by a reporter, looking for that next award.

    1. Well, we don’t know at this point. I am betting that the reporter used her. I do think she had something horrible happen to her. In fact, I am guessing the reporter led her to mis-identify the participants.

      Did anyone see Newsroom last night? That was a sub-plot…campus rape.

      I think far too many of the men here on this blog are dismissing that it happens. I am not sure why either. I certainly haven’t heard any of the women dismissing that it happens. I am just more comfortable including sexual misconduct as the topic. Certainly not all sexual misconduct ends up being legal rape. However, if we use the definition of unwanted or uninvited genital contact or breast groping as the definition of sexual misconduct, then getting smacked on the butt or kissed without permission is not considered sexual misconduct.

      I am just not sure why men are in such denial. Maybe that should be the new discussion.

      My mother’s freaking cousin’s husband groped me at a funeral and then got all pissed off when I elbowed him in the solar plexus. He stayed pissed at me until the day he died. He had apparently pulled shenanigans on many of the grown women in my family. They apparently just stayed away from him. I clobbered him. He was one of those who sneaks up from behind had gropes and then pretends like he doesn’t know….one of those.

      I really shouldn’t have started thinking about this topic. There are a lot of creeps out there and they need to be called out. There is this pervasive feeling that women have been forced into thinking…that they must be inviting it…that it in some way must be their fault. No. I call bullshit on that. I just had to fight those feelings down a minute ago and that it ridiculous.

  48. Steve Thomas

    I know it happens. Mrs. T’s chosen profession makes this an inescapable part of our lives. I am also blessed to be the father of a little girl, who will one day be out there, amongst the male population. I am painfully aware that with each passing year, my ability to shape, influence, and most importantly, protect my daughter from the worst parts of life, diminishes. Some may think this view “paternalistic”. They can pound sand. If “1 in 5” girls/women experience some sort of sexual assault, I want to make sure that I have done everything I can to ensure she’s on the good side of this stat.

    1. It’s your job to be paternalistic. If you aren’t to your daughter, then who?

      I think with my definition of sexual assault the numbers are higher. Keep doing what you are doing with your daughter.

      Actually you have touched on a key element. why don’t some girls report these personal violations? Because they were doing something that their parents had told them not to do. (talk to strangers, go to the drive in, get separated from your friends, drink, get drunk, go somewhere with someone you don’t know very well….the list goes on. Many girls just don’t want to disappoint, or cause the wrath of their parents.

      Then there was my first grade boyfriend who I went out with after high school…you think it got any better? this discussion has caused lots of memory jolts.

  49. Jackson Bills

    @Moon-howler
    The one thing I have a hard time understanding Moon is how someone can be so protective of sexual assault victims (even if their story is in now way verifiable) but on the other hand be so completely protective of sexual predators. So protective of sexual predators that you even list one of the most notorious, proficient sexual predators as a “sacred cow”. So “sacred” is this sexual predator that I was explicitly told not to talk about his sexual assaults. Such talk was forbidden on this site.

    So, just curious as to how someone could be so believing of “Jackie” yet so dismissive of actual, documented sexual assaults to the point where you forbid anyone even mentioning this mans crimes?

    You seem quite dismissive of his victims, where they are many. Why dismiss all of them, and not “Jackie”?

    https://www.moonhowlings.net/index.php/guidelines/

    1. Apparently you don’t understand sexual assault.

  50. Steve Thomas

    “The one thing I have a hard time understanding Moon is how someone can be so protective of sexual assault victims (even if their story is in now way verifiable) but on the other hand be so completely protective of sexual predators. So protective of sexual predators that you even list one of the most notorious, proficient sexual predators as a “sacred cow”. ”

    Someone please pass the popcorn… I don’t want to miss this show.

    1. There will be no show. Jackson doesn’t understand sexual assault, apparently.
      Furthermore, no one has condoned such behavior.

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