Mayor blames 4 year old for her own molestation

[fast]

If says this but leaves out the last part I striked-through then it's unclear but favors explanation over victim blaming.

Earlier when I read this, it struck a cord, and now after second glance, it strongly reminds me of the confusion others make between espousing a view and expounding on a topic. I'm not an atheist, but if I saw an atheist and a Christian arguing and believed I saw a flaw made by the Christian and decided to intervene in support of the atheist, an onlooker might easily get the mistaken impression that I'm an atheist because they don't recognize that I can walk a mile in the shoes of an atheist and expound on the views they hold without actually espousing their own held views.

Explaining something, especially when explaining why I done something can easily take on the appearance of espousing causation when the reason cited for why I did something includes the mentioning of the actions or behavior of another.

Saying, "he is the reason I did what I did" has the ring and feel of "he is the cause for why I did what I did."

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No. This isn't victim-blaming, because this is actually you making crap up. Nowhere anywhere has there been any suggestion that the little girl wanted to "play a game" or was taught "the game" or accused of initiating a game.

You are twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid admitting that this rapist engaged in victim-blaming that you have resorted to making up bullshit.

One, his victim-blaming was NOT only in context of "therapy". He said that shit to anyone who would listen. That's why we know about it.

Two, he was not at all describing "the situation accurately".

There. More than adequately addressed and thoroughly debunked.

The second article said he said it to the therapist. The first article wasn't of good quality. You have a third?

Yep. And quoted it. Just goes to show that you are not actually considered any argument but your own - very wrong - position.

I was going with what had been suggested earlier---that making it into a game is a way that she could have "initiated sex".

The only way this would shift the blame one iota is if he wasn't the one to teach her the game--and in that case it would be shifting it to the teacher, not to the girl.

Except he did it 8 times.

 

[laughing dog]

What you don't seem to get is that a discussion of the actions of the victim does not have to be shifting the blame to the victim. It can simply be a better understanding of the situation.

What you don't understand is that the pastor is not discussing the actions of the victim. A 4 year old cannot initiate sex.

 

[RavenSky]

He could have said "she complied". That's something he could know for a fact, whereas her willingness was merely assumed and asserted. It also avoids the obvious error of claiming the 4 year old had agency in the sex acts.

"Complied" is not the same as "willing".

exactly.

The first might be a fact, the second definitely is not.

Since your claim is that a rapist can recite facts without it being victim-blaming, you should be able to recognise this

 

[RavenSky]

No. This isn't victim-blaming, because this is actually you making crap up. Nowhere anywhere has there been any suggestion that the little girl wanted to "play a game" or was taught "the game" or accused of initiating a game.

You are twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid admitting that this rapist engaged in victim-blaming that you have resorted to making up bullshit.

One, his victim-blaming was NOT only in context of "therapy". He said that shit to anyone who would listen. That's why we know about it.

Two, he was not at all describing "the situation accurately".

There. More than adequately addressed and thoroughly debunked.

The second article said he said it to the therapist. The first article wasn't of good quality. You have a third?

Yep. And quoted it. Just goes to show that you are not actually considered any argument but your own - very wrong - position.

I was going with what had been suggested earlier---that making it into a game is a way that she could have "initiated sex".

Nowhere anywhere has there been any suggestion that the little girl wanted to "play a game" or was taught "the game" or accused of initiating a game, so you are simply trying to deflect your crap.

The only way this would shift the blame one iota is if he wasn't the one to teach her the game--and in that case it would be shifting it to the teacher, not to the girl.

wrong

What you don't seem to get is that a discussion of the actions of the victim does not have to be shifting the blame to the victim. It can simply be a better understanding of the situation.

wrong. What you "don't seem to get" is that discussing her alleged "willingness" is not discussing her actions. Moreover, discussing HER actions as a means of minimizing HIS actions is exactly what victim-blaming is.

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The only way this would shift the blame one iota is if he wasn't the one to teach her the game--and in that case it would be shifting it to the teacher, not to the girl.

Except he did it 8 times.

That we know of

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No. This isn't victim-blaming, because this is actually you making crap up. Nowhere anywhere has there been any suggestion that the little girl wanted to "play a game" or was taught "the game" or accused of initiating a game.

You are twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid admitting that this rapist engaged in victim-blaming that you have resorted to making up bullshit.

One, his victim-blaming was NOT only in context of "therapy". He said that shit to anyone who would listen. That's why we know about it.

Two, he was not at all describing "the situation accurately".

There. More than adequately addressed and thoroughly debunked.

The second article said he said it to the therapist. The first article wasn't of good quality. You have a third?

Yep. And quoted it. Just goes to show that you are not actually considered any argument but your own - very wrong - position.

I was going with what had been suggested earlier---that making it into a game is a way that she could have "initiated sex".

Nowhere anywhere has there been any suggestion that the little girl wanted to "play a game" or was taught "the game" or accused of initiating a game, so you are simply trying to deflect your crap.

The only way this would shift the blame one iota is if he wasn't the one to teach her the game--and in that case it would be shifting it to the teacher, not to the girl.

wrong

What you don't seem to get is that a discussion of the actions of the victim does not have to be shifting the blame to the victim. It can simply be a better understanding of the situation.

wrong. What you "don't seem to get" is that discussing her alleged "willingness" is not discussing her actions. Moreover, discussing HER actions as a means of minimizing HIS actions is exactly what victim-blaming is.

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The only way this would shift the blame one iota is if he wasn't the one to teach her the game--and in that case it would be shifting it to the teacher, not to the girl.

Except he did it 8 times.

That we know of

It's most likely more since the charges included other offenses. This was over a two year period. He obviously kept trying to get access.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

No. This isn't victim-blaming, because this is actually you making crap up. Nowhere anywhere has there been any suggestion that the little girl wanted to "play a game" or was taught "the game" or accused of initiating a game.

You are twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid admitting that this rapist engaged in victim-blaming that you have resorted to making up bullshit.

One, his victim-blaming was NOT only in context of "therapy". He said that shit to anyone who would listen. That's why we know about it.

Two, he was not at all describing "the situation accurately".

There. More than adequately addressed and thoroughly debunked.

The second article said he said it to the therapist. The first article wasn't of good quality. You have a third?

Yep. And quoted it. Just goes to show that you are not actually considered any argument but your own - very wrong - position.

I was going with what had been suggested earlier---that making it into a game is a way that she could have "initiated sex".

The only way this would shift the blame one iota is if he wasn't the one to teach her the game--and in that case it would be shifting it to the teacher, not to the girl.

Except he did it 8 times.

If she initiated it the first time that he could mean that carried over to the other times. If she I initiated more times, he could have again gone along with it. He does appear to be lying at that point.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If she initiated it the first time that he could mean that carried over to the other times. If she I initiated more times, he could have again gone along with it. He does appear to be lying at that point.

Where's a proven lie? He could and should have stopped it, that says nothing about how it came about.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

No. This isn't victim-blaming, because this is actually you making crap up. Nowhere anywhere has there been any suggestion that the little girl wanted to "play a game" or was taught "the game" or accused of initiating a game.

You are twisting yourself into a pretzel trying to avoid admitting that this rapist engaged in victim-blaming that you have resorted to making up bullshit.

One, his victim-blaming was NOT only in context of "therapy". He said that shit to anyone who would listen. That's why we know about it.

Two, he was not at all describing "the situation accurately".

There. More than adequately addressed and thoroughly debunked.

The second article said he said it to the therapist. The first article wasn't of good quality. You have a third?

Yep. And quoted it. Just goes to show that you are not actually considered any argument but your own - very wrong - position.

I was going with what had been suggested earlier---that making it into a game is a way that she could have "initiated sex".

The only way this would shift the blame one iota is if he wasn't the one to teach her the game--and in that case it would be shifting it to the teacher, not to the girl.

Except he did it 8 times.

If she initiated it the first time that he could mean that carried over to the other times. If she I initiated more times, he could have again gone along with it. He does appear to be lying at that point.

She didn't initiate sex because it's like a raccoon grabbing your penis initiating sex, nor would that carry over to the other 7 or more times he molested her. It was all his CHOICE because he was attracted to children. His irrational thoughts on the matter are part of his own denial over the fact he is solely responsible and deranged.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Reading through this particular case (my earlier posts in this thread were a response to a wide generalization), I actually think victim blaming may be the wrong term, and that this is far worse. This isn't so much a deflection of blame onto a victim. This is more an exploitation of a vulnerability.

This isn't similar to " But you know she wanted it. Look at what she was wearing", which is victim blaming. This was more a guy admitting to taking advantage of vulnerability, more like "she was unconscious the whole time and has no idea I did it" or "her husband is my twin and she thought it was me the whole time"

 

[Malintent]

Malintent, Loren, and Jolly:

You are playing right into the OP's rhetorical game of saying this and the other cases are the same, by making unreasonable arguments to find some very unlikely scenario in which the guy's comments might not victim blaming.
That's just it, the other scenarios (like the judge) do not require imagining a scenario where her words aren't trying to blame the victim. In fact, they require ignoring her explicit words and actions that fully blame and punish the rapists, and making illogical leaps light years beyond her pointing out simple scientific facts with an obvious motive of caring about the victims and trying to help women reduce their odds of victimization motive to some hidden agenda.

You certainly can. A rational person will not buy it, but we are not buying this guy's victim blaming defense either.

Keep Talking is right, your argument is bogus. It is true that the law does not recognize a child's ability to ever consent to sex, or that science refutes the idea that a 4 year old could do so because they aren't capable of comprehending what they are consenting to (and thus also incapable of being "willing" since that presumes knowledge of what one if said to be "willing" to do).
But it is equally true that people can and many do disregard the law and science, so these facts in no way preclude a person from attempting to claim a 4 year old was willing and imply that should reduce either the moral or legal blame put upon themselves.

Given that he is the one deserving of all the blame, if he implied she was willing or anything beyond the directly observable facts that would typically factor into any moral or legal judgment of wrongdoing, then the only plausible motive for saying those things was to imply partial blame on her.

Is there some possible very rare scenario where a person in that situation could say what he said without intending toMaybe, but the odds of that being true here are about 1 in a billion. It is far more probable that he was implying partial blame on her to reduce his guilt in his own and others eyes.

Maybe more importantly than whether he was consciously trying to deflect blame, any reasonable observer would conclude that he is likely trying to shift blame away from himself. No, we cannot be certain, but only because we can never be rationally certain of anything. This is in stark contrast to the other case about the judge (and other cases discussed on this board) where reasonable people would NOT conclude the speaker was victim blaming because they lack the motive and their words and actions either don't even suggest it or often directly falsify such a baseless inference.

ok. People can and do blame cosmic space aliens for global warming, so I guess we can give credit for blaming infants for being promiscuous... so, instead of the definition of victim blaming that I have been using (whereby someone attempts to create a reasonable doubt as to the initiator of an incident), you have convinced me that when people say "victim blaming" it just means "it was anything else's fault but mine, regardless of the reasonableness of the claim". Fine, if you want to loose a good word that describes a specific social phenomena then by all means, just throw it away.

"Fake News"... Information you dislike despite the degree of validity or truth..
"Victim blaming"... the positing of a legal defense whereby someone else is the initiator, even if it is physically impossible

got it. Thanks for educating me on how to dilute terms down to meaninglessness.

 

[KeepTalking]

Malintent, Loren, and Jolly:

You are playing right into the OP's rhetorical game of saying this and the other cases are the same, by making unreasonable arguments to find some very unlikely scenario in which the guy's comments might not victim blaming.
That's just it, the other scenarios (like the judge) do not require imagining a scenario where her words aren't trying to blame the victim. In fact, they require ignoring her explicit words and actions that fully blame and punish the rapists, and making illogical leaps light years beyond her pointing out simple scientific facts with an obvious motive of caring about the victims and trying to help women reduce their odds of victimization motive to some hidden agenda.



Keep Talking is right, your argument is bogus. It is true that the law does not recognize a child's ability to ever consent to sex, or that science refutes the idea that a 4 year old could do so because they aren't capable of comprehending what they are consenting to (and thus also incapable of being "willing" since that presumes knowledge of what one if said to be "willing" to do).
But it is equally true that people can and many do disregard the law and science, so these facts in no way preclude a person from attempting to claim a 4 year old was willing and imply that should reduce either the moral or legal blame put upon themselves.

Given that he is the one deserving of all the blame, if he implied she was willing or anything beyond the directly observable facts that would typically factor into any moral or legal judgment of wrongdoing, then the only plausible motive for saying those things was to imply partial blame on her.

Is there some possible very rare scenario where a person in that situation could say what he said without intending toMaybe, but the odds of that being true here are about 1 in a billion. It is far more probable that he was implying partial blame on her to reduce his guilt in his own and others eyes.

Maybe more importantly than whether he was consciously trying to deflect blame, any reasonable observer would conclude that he is likely trying to shift blame away from himself. No, we cannot be certain, but only because we can never be rationally certain of anything. This is in stark contrast to the other case about the judge (and other cases discussed on this board) where reasonable people would NOT conclude the speaker was victim blaming because they lack the motive and their words and actions either don't even suggest it or often directly falsify such a baseless inference.

ok. People can and do blame cosmic space aliens for global warming, so I guess we can give credit for blaming infants for being promiscuous... so, instead of the definition of victim blaming that I have been using (whereby someone attempts to create a reasonable doubt as to the initiator of an incident), you have convinced me that when people say "victim blaming" it just means "it was anything else's fault but mine, regardless of the reasonableness of the claim". Fine, if you want to loose a good word that describes a specific social phenomena then by all means, just throw it away.

"Fake News"... Information you dislike despite the degree of validity or truth..
"Victim blaming"... the positing of a legal defense whereby someone else is the initiator, even if it is physically impossible

got it. Thanks for educating me on how to dilute terms down to meaninglessness.

Not "someone else", only the victim. If you are attempting to shift blame from the guilty party by attempting to impart some of that blame to the victim, regardless of how insane your attempt to shift that blame might seem to others, you are victim blaming.

 

[Malintent]

So "victim blaming" isn't really a problem... not a sociological indicator that there might be a problem with perceptions of accountability of sexual activity between two adults... nope, nothing like that. It is just what all people accused of a crime involving another individual do. "They started it". That's all. No social issue in need of a label.

So, when Trump accuses CNN of being "Fake News", he is "Victim blaming" because he is saying that they are the liars, not him.

When the EPA says we need to reduce our carbon footprint to slow down global warming, they are "victim blaming" us.

When people hear a new term or a new word, they just love to use it wherever they can... "victim" and "blaming".. I can put those words to use! there's blame... and three's a victim... victim blaming! woo hoo, I used it in a sentence. Good for you.

 

[KeepTalking]

So "victim blaming" isn't really a problem... not a sociological indicator that there might be a problem with perceptions of accountability of sexual activity between two adults... nope, nothing like that. It is just what all people accused of a crime involving another individual do. "They started it". That's all. No social issue in need of a label.

It isn't what everyone accused of a crime does. Some people deny having committed the crime at all, and sometimes they are correct about that, other times they say someone else was to blame for their crime, other than the victim, still other times they admit to having committed the crime, like the rapist pedophile in this example eventually did. That did not keep him from attempting to blame his victim before changing his plea. When he was doing that, he was victim blaming.

So, when Trump accuses CNN of being "Fake News", he is "Victim blaming" because he is saying that they are the liars, not him.

I don't think we would really call CNN a victim in that case.

When the EPA says we need to reduce our carbon footprint to slow down global warming, they are "victim blaming" us.

Once again, not sure we are victims in that scenario

When people hear a new term or a new word, they just love to use it wherever they can... "victim" and "blaming".. I can put those words to use! there's blame... and three's a victim... victim blaming! woo hoo, I used it in a sentence. Good for you.

There is nothing new about the phrase "victim blaming", it was first coined in the 1970's, but has its roots in 1940's criticisms of Fascism, according to wikipedia.

 

[fromderinside]

Most rape defenses are won because of victim blaming. Its been the case for decades.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Most rape defenses are won because of victim blaming. Its been the case for decades.

Well, that's pretty much just an artifact of the fact that there aren't a whole lot of defenses for rape. If you're not planning on pleading guilty, you're left with either saying that you didn't have sex with her, thus blaming the victim for lying about what happened, or saying that the sex was consensual, thus blaming the victim for lying about what happened. There's not really any kind of defense a person can use which doesn't involve putting the responsibility for the situation onto the victim, therefore most successful defenses of the charges will involve blaming the victim. It's also equally the case that most rape defenses which are lost are done so despite victim blaming, because the ones who are found guilty probably used one of the only two defenses available to them as well.

 

[LordKiran]

Most rape defenses are won because of victim blaming. Its been the case for decades.

Well, that's pretty much just an artifact of the fact that there aren't a whole lot of defenses for rape. If you're not planning on pleading guilty, you're left with either saying that you didn't have sex with her, thus blaming the victim for lying about what happened, or saying that the sex was consensual, thus blaming the victim for lying about what happened. There's not really any kind of defense a person can use which doesn't involve putting the responsibility for the situation onto the victim, therefore most successful defenses of the charges will involve blaming the victim. It's also equally the case that most rape defenses which are lost are done so despite victim blaming, because the ones who are found guilty probably used one of the only two defenses available to them as well.

Although technically in that case, the term 'victim' is a misnomer, no?

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Most rape defenses are won because of victim blaming. Its been the case for decades.

Because we have this thing called "Presumed innocence" Anyone who wins a defense in a rape case cannot by definition be guilty of 'victim blaming' since the court does not consider her a victim.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Although technically in that case, the term 'victim' is a misnomer, no?

No, just because her attacker was found not guilty doesn't mean that she wasn't actually a rape victim.

 

[LordKiran]

Although technically in that case, the term 'victim' is a misnomer, no?

No, just because her attacker was found not guilty doesn't mean that she wasn't actually a rape victim.

Presumed innocence. So yes as far as the courts are concerned, it does.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, just because her attacker was found not guilty doesn't mean that she wasn't actually a rape victim.

Presumed innocence. So yes as far as the courts are concerned, it does.

Who cares? That doesn't affect her actually being a victim. Only about 1% of rapes result in a conviction. Are you saying that it's a misnomer to call the other 99% rape victims and therefore the actions of their attackers would not qualify as being victim blaming?