My favorite female columnist brings the funk today....

Glad you can tell me how I should have lived my life when I was a teenager, Alma. Good for you. Hope you sleep well knowing you've passed judgement on the decisions of frightened and traumatized teenage girls who wanted nothing more than for the whole thing to go away.

Good for you. You're obviously a far better person than what I am.

 

I think 21 said it best:

The decision could be very clear-cut ... until you're the one making it.

There are some moral/ethical situations in which I think "walk a mile" is essential. Rape is one of them.

 

Oh, if we put it to a better person vote on this subject, I think you'd win.

At any rate, if you doubt my awareness or acknowledgment of the mass suffering, reread my second post on this thread. Just because my decision-making paradigm doesn't fit what you feel/felt doesn't invalidate it.

And I did not say it was easy to name one's attacker. I imagine it would be one of the most difficult things a victim - man, woman, boy, girl - would ever do. It would be an awful cross to bear.

And yet despite all that...

It's not judgment I'm passing, but justice I'm suggesting. If the greatest obstacle to justice is a victim's unwillingness, then it bears worth creating the correct paradigm so that attackers don't get away with. Katie Hnida is an activist, at this point, who has not even brought her attacker to a day in court. To me, that falls short of the standard. And that's all.

 

If victims don't testify, then the system breaks down. I'm with you that far.

 

SC, in your opinion, does this describe Hnida?

 

At the time of rape when the evidence needed to press charges and have a chance in hell of getting a conviction, yes.

 

Can you reconcile 'wanting the whole thing to go away' with someone who is writing a book and working with a publicist and doing national media?

I'm not judging, I'm asking. I don't know what she should have done, or what she should do now...I'm just wondering if her actions are consistent with someone who wants it all to go away.

 

Does that describe her now? No.

But I'm willing to bet it describes her at the time of the attack. Alma nonsense that she should have pressed charges and brought the guy to justice doesn't take into account how she felt then.

 

First of all, I'm not going to argue directly with sportschick about how she should have handled the past. If I'm reading this correctly, she was a victim of some sort of sexual assault at some point and I would never tell her how she should have handled something like that. I know that I can't possibly completely understand what she went through.

But to say I can't have any opinion on the subject of sexual assault in general because I've never been a victim myself? She kinda loses me there. We're journalists. We express opinions and pass along information about things we haven't experienced ourselves all the time. It's what we do.

I have a close friend who was raped in a situation that was very similar to Hnida's story. There was definitely a part of me that wanted her to report it, even though she was telling me the story long after it happened. And I was absolutely frustrated by the idea of him getting away with it. But I didn't argue with her. I asked why she didn't report it and accepted her decision, because that's really what she wanted at that point -- acceptance.

I understand why Hnida didn't report her attacker and I do believe the story she is telling may help other women who have been victims. And she has every right to stop there and do nothing else.

But she could have done more. She's still a victim and the man who assaulted her still hasn't paid one tiny bit for what he did. Is it wrong for us to want the more fulfilling ending? To want to see her fight back and to see her attacker suffer?

You bring up the Kobe Bryant situation and the Duke Lacrosse one. Were the women treated unfairly and put through ridiculous amounts of crap? Absolutely. But even though both rape cases were eventually dropped, Bryant and the Duke lacrosse players paid a price. Not enough of one if they were truly guilty, but there is a mark on their reputations. More importantly, maybe some other young girl who knows what happened might think twice before putting herself at risk in their presence. Isn't that worth fighting something, even without getting a conviction?

Do I feel like a schmuck writing some of this? Yeah, I do. But I don't think I'm wrong. And I've written things that on here and for the public in my newspaper work that made me feel a little guilty. I've written about athletes who lost a loved one. I've written about athletes who lost their lives, forcing me to interview their loved ones, who were going through their on kind of hell. As a father, I can't imagine the horror of something happening to my child, but if I had to interview a parent who went through that very thing for work tomorrow, I'd do it and I'd write the story.

It's a part of what we do.

 

I really never meant to imply that folks shouldn't have an opinion. I just really dislike the implication that a victim (or survivor as some advocates prefer) hasn't done the right thing if she choosed not to pursue charges.

Is it awful that guy's out there, possibly raping other women? Yes. But to insist that a victim put herself through further victimization (and yes, that's what goes on when you press charges. Character assassination, etc.) is ridiculous. Only the victim knows what she's (or he's, 10 percent of all rape victims are male) capable of enduring.

 

Alma, it's not like you to take the most extreme example of a point to make a counterpoint, but that's just what you did here.

All I meant was that we/I have no right to tell someone how to cope with rape. I think that was pretty clear.

 

Fair enough, sportschick. And I can definitely understand your strong reaction to this topic. I just wish more women did file charges, in turn inspiring others to do the same and help fight back even more against rape and other forms of sexual assualt.