Mayor blames 4 year old for her own molestation

[RavenSky]

But did he say otherwise? I think that is where Loren is going. Did he say it wasn't his fault and was hers? Or did he just say she was willing?

The original article certainly made it look like a case of victim blaming. But the Washington Post article looks much more reasonable--and simply reports that he told the therapist that she was a willing participant. Someone of that age can't possibly give consent but it would be easy enough to structure things that she wouldn't have any reason to object.

The discussion is not about what you find "reasonable" about the multiple rapes of a four-year-old child.

It is about what constitutes victim-blaming. In that, it does not matter whate the setting is, the mayor was victim-blaming. He claimed she initiated it. He claimed she was a willing participant. Those claims are victim-blaming. Simple, clear, zero room for you or anyone else to deny it.

The fact that you are denying it is "rape-culture"

 

[laughing dog]

The pastor plead guilty to 8 counts of rape, 4 counts of attempted rape and 8 counts of gross sexual imposition. He has been sentenced to life in prison with parole possible after 10 years (http://www.vindy.com/news/2017/mar/18/ex-hubbard-mayor-pleads-guilty-to--rape-/?newswatch

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm going with victim blaming. To me, this hinges on why the fact (with a mitigating appearance) is offered. If it's to show guilt of a lesser evil, that's not victim blaming; if it's to show he's not solely and absolutely 100% in the wrong, then it is.

By the Washington Post article there was no mitigating circumstances offered. It simply was a discussion of what actually happened.

If one says her skirt was provocative, that information alone is insufficient to determine that one is attempting to blame the victim. It doesn't look good (that's for sure), and if one goes on to say this never would have happened if she wasn't dressed so provocatively, it's going to take a herd of horses to convince me it's not victim blaming. However, the truth is still the truth, and the truth still hinges on just what I say it does.

Her skirt was provocative? Definitely victim blaming although really all you're doing is showing how weak you are.

A willingness of a child to acquiesce to an adults sexual wants in absolutely no way implies legal consent. If the perpetrator of a sexual assault brings up the victims frame of mind as if it was a pleasurable welcoming experience (by saying the child liked or enjoyed it, or the child wanted it or asked for it), then we still need to know why the perp is saying those things.

Yup, which is the key point. If this had been in the courtroom I certainly would call it victim blaming. However, it was with the therapist. That simply makes it details of what happened, not an attempt to lay blame.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

But did he say otherwise? I think that is where Loren is going. Did he say it wasn't his fault and was hers? Or did he just say she was willing?

Victim-blaming does not require the asshole doing it to say "It wasn't the rapist's fault. It was hers". Assholes engaged in victim-blaming say shit like "She initiated it", "She was a willing participant", "She didn't resist". Assholes engaged in victim-blaming assign at least a portion of the responsibility for wrongful act committed against them.

I truly can not believe that you and Loren do not understand that claiming a four-year-old child "initiated" a sex act is blaming her for the rape committed against her.

If anyone needed an illustration of how deeply ingrained rape-culture is, here it is in action.

The problem here is that you are utterly unwilling to consider the context in which something is said.

 

[RavenSky]

Victim-blaming does not require the asshole doing it to say "It wasn't the rapist's fault. It was hers". Assholes engaged in victim-blaming say shit like "She initiated it", "She was a willing participant", "She didn't resist". Assholes engaged in victim-blaming assign at least a portion of the responsibility for wrongful act committed against them.

I truly can not believe that you and Loren do not understand that claiming a four-year-old child "initiated" a sex act is blaming her for the rape committed against her.

If anyone needed an illustration of how deeply ingrained rape-culture is, here it is in action.

The problem here is that you are utterly unwilling to consider the context in which something is said.

Because your tortured rapesplaining about "context" does not matter. I will repeat just for you - it does not matter where, when or to whom this rapist made his claims that the four-year-old victim "initiated it" and "wanted it" - he was victim-blaming when he said it.

The real problem here, Loren, is that you are regularly guilty of victim-blaming yourself, so you either can't recognize it when someone else is doing it or you don't dare admit you understand else you might be called to task when you do it.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

So no, bringing up what somebody is wearing or how somebody is behaving CAN be brought up and can even be done so to take blame off of the accused, without it being victim blaming.

Wrong. Discussing the behavior of a victim to take the blame off of the accused is necessarily shifting some of that blame to the victim. It is victim blaming, plain and simple.

So very easy to scream "Wrong!" without actually addressing what I said, isn't it? Trump showed us that.

Sorry, but context matters in determining the level of blameworthiness of somebody for an action, and context can include the behaviour of others who are in no way misbehaving or worthy of blame themselves.

 

[LordKiran]

Wrong. Discussing the behavior of a victim to take the blame off of the accused is necessarily shifting some of that blame to the victim. It is victim blaming, plain and simple.

So very easy to scream "Wrong!" without actually addressing what I said, isn't it? Trump showed us that.

Sorry, but context matters in determining the level of blameworthiness of somebody for an action, and context can include the behaviour of others who are in no way misbehaving or worthy of blame themselves.

Last I checked, four year old children cannot give legal consent to sexual activity. So it's a moot point if said four year old did initiate sexual acts with a grown man.

 

[laughing dog]

Wrong. Discussing the behavior of a victim to take the blame off of the accused is necessarily shifting some of that blame to the victim. It is victim blaming, plain and simple.

So very easy to scream "Wrong!" without actually addressing what I said, isn't it? Trump showed us that.

Sorry, but context matters in determining the level of blameworthiness of somebody for an action, and context can include the behaviour of others who are in no way misbehaving or worthy of blame themselves.

Perhaps you can work through the logic of how saying a 4 year old either initiated sex or was a willing participant with an adult male is not an attempt to mitigate the responsibility of the rapist?

 

[laughing dog]

Yup, which is the key point. If this had been in the courtroom I certainly would call it victim blaming. However, it was with the therapist. That simply makes it details of what happened, not an attempt to lay blame.

Even in the context of therapy, it might well be an attempt to excuse or mitigate the responsibility of one's behavior. 2nd, and most importantly, a 4 year old cannot possibly be a willing participant in sex because 4 year olds do not have the requisite maturity to make such a decision.

 

[KeepTalking]

Wrong. Discussing the behavior of a victim to take the blame off of the accused is necessarily shifting some of that blame to the victim. It is victim blaming, plain and simple.

So very easy to scream "Wrong!" without actually addressing what I said, isn't it? Trump showed us that.

Sorry, but context matters in determining the level of blameworthiness of somebody for an action, and context can include the behaviour of others who are in no way misbehaving or worthy of blame themselves.

I did not scream "Wrong!" In internet parlance one would have to place the entire word in caps for it to be screaming, but I also did not place an exclamation mark after the word. Also, I did address what you said, I even repeated a significant portion of what you said, word for word ("to take the blame off of the accused") in order to make sure that what I was saying was directly relevant to your argument.

Now you say that "context matters in determining the level of blameworthiness of somebody for an action", but we are not attempting to assess the blameworthiness of somebody for an action, we are discussing whether the perpetrator of a crime was trying to shift blame to their victim. The context of your previous quote was that the perpetrator can bring up things about the behavior of the victim "to take blame off of the accused, without it being victim blaming". I noted that this necessarily shifts some of the blame to the victim, which is victim blaming. I will note that your response completely avoids the point I made and instead falsely accused me of shouting, while attempting to contrast my behavior with that of Donald Trump. Bad form there, JP.

 

[KeepTalking]

Yup, which is the key point. If this had been in the courtroom I certainly would call it victim blaming.

What does being in the courtroom have to do with it? Is there some legal definition of "victim blaming" of which I am unaware? Any time a criminal attempts to shift blame for his actions to his victim, this is accurately labelled as "victim blaming", whether it is done in the courtroom, the locker room, or the bar room.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

The context of your previous quote was that the perpetrator can bring up things about the behavior of the victim "to take blame off of the accused, without it being victim blaming"

Correct.

I noted that this necessarily shifts some of the blame to the victim, which is victim blaming.

Not necessarily, no, it does not. Hence the examples of exactly that which I gave that you ignored and instead just said "Wrong". I can give more examples if it helps.

You don't need to shift blameworthiness onto another person to take it (or some of it) off of yourself.

What does being in the courtroom have to do with it? Is there some legal definition of "victim blaming" of which I am unaware? Any time a criminal attempts to shift blame for his actions to his victim, this is accurately labelled as "victim blaming", whether it is done in the courtroom, the locker room, or the bar room.

That is true, but also saying nothing more than victim blaming is victim blaming. But again, when somebody notes the behavior of another to try to excuse themselves, that isn't always victim blaming. Do you need more examples?

 

[KeepTalking]

Correct.

I noted that this necessarily shifts some of the blame to the victim, which is victim blaming.

Not necessarily, no, it does not. Hence the examples of exactly that which I gave that you ignored and instead just said "Wrong". I can give more examples if it helps.

I did not feel that your example in the post to which I was responding was very pertinent, as the example did not include the commission of a crime. If you would like to provide a more appropriate example which includes criminal activity, then please do so.

You don't need to shift blameworthiness onto another person to take it (or some of it) off of yourself.

Of course you don't, there are multiple ways of shifting blame. If, however, shifting that blame is being done by noting the actions of your victim with regard to the commission of a crime on your part, then you are necessarily shifting blame to that victim, and this is called victim blaming.

What does being in the courtroom have to do with it? Is there some legal definition of "victim blaming" of which I am unaware? Any time a criminal attempts to shift blame for his actions to his victim, this is accurately labelled as "victim blaming", whether it is done in the courtroom, the locker room, or the bar room.

That is true, but also saying nothing more than victim blaming is victim blaming.

Then you agree with me. And, yes, it may be a tautology, but blaming your victim is victim blaming.

But again, when somebody notes the behavior of another to try to excuse themselves, that isn't always victim blaming.

It is when the behavior you are noting is that of your VICTIM (yes, I am shouting now).

Do you need more examples?

Not really, but if you want to dig your hole deeper, I won't stop you. As long as the example includes a criminal and their victim.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

I did not feel that your example in the post to which I was responding was very pertinent, as the example did not include the commission of a crime.

Because the behaviours of the "victims" in both those examples fully excuse the actions of the would be accuseds. They certainly could have each been CHARGED with a crime. The behaviour of the other person being pointed out then shifts that blame off of them, but not onto the "victims" ("victims" in quotes because they are therefore not victims).

But even short of fully excusing somebody of a crime they are accused of, there are degrees of blameworthiness, and again that can depend on context, which can include the actions of other people who themselves are not blameworthy for the actions they took to create the context. Is this what you need examples of?

If I rear end your car because you suddenly slam on your brakes, I am legally to blame because I was following too closely. But is that equally blameworhy as if I just decided to ram you from behind for fun? Is pointing out that you were suddenly stopping blaming the victim? Perhaps you stopped for a perfectly good reason I wasn't or couldn't be aware of.

If I find your wallet and don't know but think it may be yours, and I decide to just keep it instead of talking to you about it, is that as blameworthy as if I found your ID and a contact number in there and kept it anyway? And is that as blameworthy as if I pickpocketed you? Or does the changing context (of your creation) change my blameworthiness? And if it does, is pointing that out blaming the victim?

 

[RavenSky]

Wrong. Discussing the behavior of a victim to take the blame off of the accused is necessarily shifting some of that blame to the victim. It is victim blaming, plain and simple.

So very easy to scream "Wrong!" without actually addressing what I said, isn't it? Trump showed us that.

Sorry, but context matters in determining the level of blameworthiness of somebody for an action, and context can include the behaviour of others who are in no way misbehaving or worthy of blame themselves.

It is easy for you to say the same erroneous thing over and over and over without supporting your claim in any way whatsoever, but you will still be wrong

"Context" does not include claiming that your victim "initiated" her rape or "dressed provocatively" or anything similar in determining the "level of blameworthiness of" a rapist because that is victim-blaming.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

It is easy for you to say the same erroneous thing over and over and over without supporting your claim in any way whatsoever, but you will still be wrong

I'm not making a claim so much as you are, with your wide sweeping statement that mentions of dress or behaviour of the victim always equates to victim blaming. My statement (or claim if you want to call it that) is just trying to show you that your wide sweeping claim isn't always true. I first gave examples regarding dress and later gave examples regarding behaviour. So yes, I have supported what I've said. You haven't. You instead resorted to adhom and psychoanalysis on Loren.

 

[RavenSky]

It is easy for you to say the same erroneous thing over and over and over without supporting your claim in any way whatsoever, but you will still be wrong

I'm not making a claim so much as you are, with your wide sweeping statement that mentions of dress or behaviour of the victim always equates to victim blaming. My statement (or claim if you want to call it that) is just trying to show you that your wide sweeping claim isn't always true. I first gave examples regarding dress and later gave examples regarding behaviour. So yes, I have supported what I've said.

Sorry, no. You have failed to actually support anything you have said. As was already pointed out to you, your examples are not analogous, and you have not provided anything whatsoever in the way of factual evidence or factual sources to support yourself. I have, on the other hand, done so repeatedly on multiple threads on this topic... evidence that you and Loren and the rest simply ignore while you repeat your erroneous opinions yet again. And now you resort to personal attacks behind the scenes in private messages, so let's not pretend butter doesn't melt in your mouth, JP.

 

[Trausti]

Sex offenders are not particularly bright.

The bewildering excuse that a four-year old initiated sex may be a sign of that.

 

[laughing dog]

Then you agree with me. And, yes, it may be a tautology, but blaming your victim is victim blaming.

That should be obvious to most reasonably intellectually honest and alert people.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Ravensky,

I have given examples. You have given nothing but broad sweeping claims.

And now you are engaging in slander. I have not engaged in personal attacks in private messages. I merely downvoted your previous message for your attack on Loren instead of the topic. I noted that you are a "super moderator" and that this is especially bad form from you. If that is all you mean by me engaging in personal attacks in private messages, admit it so we collectively roll our eyes at you.....