Because most of the time the police don't take sexual assault cases seriously and it just ends up being a burden and humiliation to the victim who has to see their accuser in court, or worse, see nothing happen at all due to no proof. There's usually not a lot of proof unless the assault was super violent and just happened. If it's a random groping (like everything Spacey is accused of) or Louis CK jerking off in front of you, there's not going to be any proof beyond he-said-she-said. It's just important to believe victims of this stuff and have conversations about the fact that it DOES happen very often, rather than dismissing or scrutinizing.

Umm more like it's the police doing g there job to make sure they have the right person. I mean would not want to put someone to death who is innocent cough George Stinney cough. Or rail road three young men cough Duke Lacrosse Scandal cough.

It's called DUE PROCESS OF LAW. Maybe I don't know learn about how the system works sometimes.

You are innocent until proven guilty. That is how it works that is how Due Process works.

We don't live in a place that has mob rule. Don't like it move to a North Korea. Tell me how great there system is then. Oh wait you can't even use social media there so yeah never mind.

The police ask questions is not them not believing it's them doing the job to they can get the right person.

Okay so you're just a mouth-breathing cretin who didn't read what I wrote and don't know what you're fucking talking about. Go crawl back in your cave. Fucking smarmy sarcastic, condescending response like that when I tried to have a reasonable debate - fuck off.

Consider your own example of murder. Mafia/mob crime ran rampant for many decades because the perpetrators could intimidate/threaten/blackmail victims or witnesses out of reporting the crime. Similarly, the perps had enough influence with law enforcement & the establishment that reporting the crime was often stonewalled even if you hadn't encountered the former scenario. With these two obstacles in place, most victims could not report what happened to them for a long time, if at all. A remarkably similar process happens these days with sexual assault.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like sex-related crimes are the least researched and validated when it comes to local crimes. I already talked about how tens-of-thousands of rape kits sitting in police precincts were just now starting to be evaluated.

Haha, that dude's response is amazing. And he's actually right. That's how the criminal system works. Innocent until proven guilty. Emp, I think what you mean is, "give victims the benefit of the doubt" and not "believe victims". Saying "believe victims" is insanely loaded language, because you're already prescribing proven innocence and guilt to the parties involved. We should absolutely be willing to hear their story, and as such, give them the benefit of the doubt as a result.

Kevin Spacey and Louis CK both admitted to what they did, so if he's talking about those cases as "innocent until proven guilty" then I dunno what to say because he is dead wrong already. With something like Weinstein, there are so many accusations that it's absurd to think every single one is a lie and it's some conspiracy. In the case of Roy Moore, the amount of detail in those accusations, combined with the reporting that has been done in the last few days on Moore's reputation in town, being banned from a mall for soliciting girls, being known for trying to date minors - that is simply too much stuff against him to go 'well, it could all be lies.' If you want proof, the things I've listed here are the closest you can get for a lot of these stories.

Context, detail and reasons for why someone would lie all matter. It isn't all about 'proof' in these cases since so much of it happened years ago - and again, there can't really be "proof" for a random groping or something like that, so unsure what you're looking for there. There are layers here beyond DNA tests and physical proof or whatever people like this guy want. There are always more things to take into account.

There isn't discussion about who's at fault or innocent in the case of Louis C.K. and Kevin Spacey because they said, "I did this." That's case closed as far as I'm concerned. And I put Harvey Weinstein in the Bill Cosby category, in that, so many stories have come out, there's no way that shit isn't true. And that, as a result, is kind of all the "proof" one needs.

So, you mention the "proof" aspect to this. I don't prescribe to the idea of "proof" as rigidly as other people might. Proof could simply be a detailed retelling of the events. In the case of Bill Cosby, so many stories come out with all similar details that you have to accept he is more than likely guilty. Proof isn't necessarily a bloody knife with DNA at the crime scene. As I mentioned, I think it's important to give victims the benefit of the doubt in these instances and be willing to hear their stories. In the court of public opinion, I think it's doubly important.

Seems you both are saying the same thing, just with different words.

I wasn't really arguing with FD at all. My post was just what I should have said with the previous post.

Yeah, we're agreeing, for the most part. Which may be the first time that's happened.

It's a miracle!

Back to regular Trump bullshit business, apparently Sessions now recalls having meeting about Russia.

Reasonable debate. You are one of the people who just jumps on saying someone is gulit of a crime and that we just have to believe the victim. You don't want a debate. If you wanted a debate here fine why the duck do you have such a God Damn ducking problem With innocent until proven gulit that's how it works.

Expalin how just saying someone is guilt is a good thing?

That is FUCKING MOB RULE. THE COURT OF PUBLIC OPINION WHEN IT COMES TO A CRIME MEANS JACK SHIT. This is why there can be no debate because you are not going by due process of the law. You just want and Empyreal and others like you want a fucking Kangroo COURT.

Public opinion obviously shouldn't overrule an actual court process, and I wasn't advocating such. People are free to make their own decisions and opinions on this stuff for their personal opinions, but should be flexible when more information comes out. Does anybody still think O.J. Simpson is still innocent? I mean, really.

Also, please stop talking, you're making my brain hurt.

Dettigers, you might be confusing the possibility of the public having an opinion with their enforcing that opinion through legal or quasi-legal channels. The court of public opinion does not usually imply anything legally.

And above you suggest that in North Korea, they have mob rule. Surely you see that this makes no sense. It makes sense to such a low degree that you might feel humility, and eventually even apologetic.

Mouth-breathing cretin, all right. When FasterDisaster makes you sound like an imbecile, it's time to stop posting and gain some shred of self-awareness somewhere.

http://mashable.com/2017/11/14/cards-ag ... rder-wall/

Cards Against Humanity wins forever.

I don't think that would stop the wall builders if they ever get around to doing it.

Now now now...

I know sexual crimes and misconduct are flammable subjects, and perhaps even more so on this board, but I think it's necessary to clarify a few things.

Dettigers has it right on one level: juridical process needs to be founded on the accused person indeed being assumed to be innocent until proven guilty. Even if he or she admits guilt, even if that sounds goofy. That's one of the foundation stones of Western legal systems, and I sure hope it stays that way. Also, it is necessary that the accused gets the best possible defense, no matter how disgusting the crime might be. That is indeed important, and no, rape or other sexual crimes are not excluded. Once found guilty, they are guilty, and that's it. Guilty or not is essentially a binary situation, decided by a court.

On another level, yes, Spacey and Louis CK are indeed guilty, they have admitted that themselves. It is possible, however, that they won't be found guilty in a trial. I don't know what the statute of limitations in the US states where they committed their acts in are, but I'd bet it's likely that at least some of the stuff they did happened so long ago that it will no longer lead to conviction. That does not mean they are not guilty of the stuff they confessed, except on the level of actually getting convicted.

On a third level, the two, and even the others mentioned, have already suffered quite a bit of consequences for their actions, statute of limitations or not: I'd bet the two have essentially already suffered losses in the millions of dollars through losing contracts and House of Cards seasons. Because that's what the public wants to see and expects nowadays, with the attitudes shifting in the right direction, and that's what commercial companies will resort to when wanting to avoid being associated with sex criminals, convicted or not. And they are free to do so. They will be made into examples, and that's quite fine, IMO. No, it does not equal a prison sentence, or maybe it won't offer the victims the same closure, but then again, it does hurt them a bit, and it does an important thing: it sets standards, opens the issues to further scrutiny, and twists the dials a bit to the right direction; even the powerful and well-known people can expect more scrutiny and loss of immunity in the future.

I sometimes feel like Empyreal, with his heavy rhetoric, supports immediate public flaying and castration upon accusations of sexual misconduct. No, I don't think he really means that, but Dettigers has a point on the due process thing. And that's where some of the problems definitely lies. If there are mountains of unexamined rape kits stored somewhere, or the clothes the victim wore when assaulted seem to matter, for example, I'd say the problem is not in the process, but in the fact that the very same process has obviously not been actually followed. Things need to be done in accordance to the law, and that means both following the due process with the innocent-until-proven-guilty adage, and not blaming the victim or making reporting sex crimes a daunting prospect or a stigmatizing experience. The attitude of the law enforcement might be screwed, and the experiences of the victims might be horrible, but that does not immediately mean that the foundation of the legal system is wrong and needs to be scrapped; it means the stuff is more about law enforcement attitudes, education, checks and controls of the behavior and conduct of the law enforcement, training, and influencing the public attitudes. These cases certainly do good on the last item, at least.

I get the feeling people are talking over one another...

There's two different conversations at play, and both are valid. Dettigers isn't wrong about "due process," the legal perspective and what happens in courts. But the legal perspective, while it plays a part in the "court of public opinion" isn't the only factor there. People are free to make up their own opinions of what happened, to believe the accused or the victim, and to believe that justice wont be served for whatever reason. Nobody is really questioning what Dettigers has said as far as "due process" and all that jazz. They're questioning him over that being a defense to people making opinions and holding beliefs about what happened. Which would imply that we should never, ever question the legal system and its doling out of "justice." That is what makes his OUTBURSTS OF CAPS ARRRRGH I'M GETTING UPSET seem absolutely infantile, idiotic and irrational.

Well, duh, exactly. Thank you, you marvelously chiseled lumberjack of wisdom.

You know it's bad when *I* have to tl;dr this shit.

Yeah. IIRC, it's actually mentioned in the Bible as one of the signs of an impending Apocalypse.

So, this isn't a purely political thing, but The Washington Post wrote this really amazing article about what happens to victims and perpetrators of sexual harassment in the workplace. I think it can be difficult to know what happens between the reports and the ending of these unfortunate scenarios, but this article sheds some light on it.

Unrelated, and for my own personal bookmarking: Life under Kim Jong Un and life for those who escape.

Ok so the problem with that article is Shannon's story. "Almost all of my co-workers were male. They would talk about “eating taco.” When I came back from having a child, one of them said, “Can somebody cry like a baby to make Shannon leak?” It was a fraternity. You either played along or you got maligned, and in the end, I wasn’t playing along."

Fraternal culture within work environments that are dominated by men (like one of the examples in the article) cannot and will not change for a very long time. Women who come from a family of brothers seem to understand this very well compared to women of a family of sisters.

And it also diminishes the meaning of sexual harassment, which is always a direct and very personal advancement. Generally talking about eating pussy is not a direct advancement.. Nor is clowning about female anatomy in that way, because it clearly wasn't sexual..

Yeah but you never know when one of those guys was going to take it a step further. That's why you can't just sit there as a person not part of a scenario and dictate how the person who IS part of it should feel. No one was saying it was the same thing as being raped - but it is troubling and irritating and worth mentioning in a conversation about this.

Yes, I would never tell her that she should/shouldn't feel a certain way. Much like if I told a fundamentalist his religion was full of shit, and he felt offended. However, sexual harassment is not about feelings, but about direct and personal assaults. If the average legal system included feelings, then we'd be in a world of trouble.

The workplace is not a fraternity and should not make female employees feel unwelcome. Not everyone reacts the same way to vulgar sex jokes, no, but they are still inappropriate for the workplace, and can contribute to a hostile work environment. Moreover, in that example, one of the comments Shannon heard included her own name, so it's not true that they were just general comments not targeting her specifically.

It might not be categorized as straight-up sexual harassment, but creating a hostile work environment is still not OK.

Only if men refuse to acknowledge it is a problem.

If her job depended on her playing along, they are literally coercing her into doing so. That is, they are coercing her into participating in a situation for the sake of their sexual thrills, however mild. I haven't read the article, to be honest. But I think you're generalizing too quickly. And the line between "direct" and "indirect" and "personal" and "impersonal" is not really so distinct: just consider implication, how mobsters talk, etc.

It's true that one should be careful about giving relatively small infractions as much as attention as larger ones, because it can muddy the waters etc. If someone is accused of beating the shit out of multiple people, I would not add, "Yeah, and he once shoved me!" Nonetheless, it was (in this hypothetical scenario) wrong for him to have shoved me, it still counts as an act of violence, etc. Just because there are countervailing reasons against bringing it up doesn't mean it doesn't fall under the relevant category, albeit as a more mild instance.

1. Workplaces shouldn't be fraternities or sororities, but that's what they end up being if you've ever really gotten along with co-workers in a work place. I've worked in two nursing facilities, and the women are just as bad. It's actually great.
2. If it feels hostile, go to HR.

Unorthodox seems to be very orthodox indeed with this subject. I can't figure out if it's defeatism or just plain old contentment with the status quo. It's really not that far off from "women haven't been able to vote for decades now, there's no way that's going to change."

On this issue, it's defeatism, I'll acknowledge that for sure. I don't think that you can change human nature just because there are aspects of humans that are vulgar. Sex, and the frequency of which males think about sex, is one of those things. Acknowledging it is a problem to be so public about instinctive motivations can take a large amount of self awareness, of which a very large amount of plebeians have none. Were on a fuckin thread talking about how a reality tv host is now president- I think self awareness is a little too much for many, wouldn't you say?

Some people do go to HR and it doesn't help though. That's why it's important to be able to talk about this shit.

How many times have there been stories where one of the caveats of the whole thing turned out to be "Woman X filed a complaint, but it was never followed up or investigated."

Going to H.R. isn't some magic bullet and not every company/campus/organization follows the same protocol with regards to sexual harassment.

HR works for the company, and they will do what's best for the company in nearly all cases. Sometimes that does involve helping the people that come to them, but it often doesn't.

Truthful facts stated ^

This also applies to the services available on campuses as well. They serve the school and will do whatever is in the administration's best interest, whether that be helping you or burying you. Be wise and wary! Many in this thread on many sides of many issues will instantly recognize the wisdom of checking who such entities' paymasters are before putting their full faith in them.

It's a magic bullet if you're aggressive about wanting something done.

You know this?

If you include getting fired and/or coerced into signing an NDA as getting "something done," sure, it's 100% a magic bullet.