UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

[doctorquant]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

That said, at the very least, I would insist on a comment or a "no comment" from the dean to whom she allegedly told the story. The rest of the article is a collection of unrelated anecdotes or data.

UVa is not gonna let that dean talk. The president does that.

Here's how it would go at my school ...

Assistant Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs Sidney Sinecure referred questions about Mooniversity's investigation to the university's office of general counsel. Speaking for that office, Avery Asssitter said, "The university's investigation is ongoing," but Asssitter would not comment further.

 

[doctorquant]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

In this alleged Virginia case, seven men set up a violent assault of a stone cold sober woman that they knew and that their friend was dating, then violently and degradingly raped her one after the other, for hours. These are educated men. During the course of this, they said things like, "We had to do it, so you do, too!"

It does beg credulity, doesn't it?

 

[Songbird]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

Educated men.

Bill Clinton is an educated man who needed to get his deck sucked often and went to great lengths to make it happen.

Education and Sex have nothing to do with each other.

The need for Sex makes people do the damnedest things.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

In this alleged Virginia case, seven men set up a violent assault of a stone cold sober woman that they knew and that their friend was dating, then violently and degradingly raped her one after the other, for hours. These are educated men. During the course of this, they said things like, "We had to do it, so you do, too!"

It does beg credulity, doesn't it?

This WP article looks back at the 1990 book "Fraternity Gang Rape." It sounds like the book has been generally well-regarded and considered authoritative on the matter. Based on that book, none of the behavior described in the RS article would be out of character in this environment.

"There is a similarity of pattern in these incidents," Lois G. Forer wrote in the foreword to the landmark 1990 book "Fraternity Gang Rape." "The men are on their own 'turf,' whether it be a part of a park, a shack, or a fraternity house. The identity of the woman is irrelevant. Anyone who happens to be at or near the premises will suffice. All the men drink a great deal of liquor. Then, in the presence of the entire group, each has sex in turn with the female. … While individually they probably would not engage in such brutal or degrading conduct, when reinforced by their companions they exhibit no sense of what most men and women consider decency or compassion."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/24/university-of-virginias-rape-scandal-and-the-fraternity-gang-rape-culture/?tid=hp_mm

 

[Alma]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

This story did not happen. I am 99.9 percent certain of it.

So the writer -- and the school -- is getting majorly trolled by this group and/or this college student?

Because, remember, this story isn't just a rape tale, but a tale of bureaucracy and a person getting caught up in the UVa system. So the person exists and the person is pursuing some kind of recourse, and has been for some time.

While it's possible that the writer embellished details, where else would she have gotten those details but the student? And if there was a discrepancy between the story the writer wrote and what the writer was told, we would have heard about it by now.

I think that very little of this story occurred the way that the woman told the Rolling Stone writer it occurred, and I think it is possible that none of it happened the way the woman said it happened.

There's a difference between "she made most of it up" and "she made it all up."

I don't know what she'd gain -- the student -- by making most of it up. The RS story isn't merely about the viciousness of the crime -- in fact, it switches pretty quickly from that -- and embellishing details (which she would have had to do from the very beginning) wouldn't have been necessary if she'd been raped in a more "plausible" way. Think about it: The point of embellishment would be to create a narrative that was more plausible to believe, not less. In theory a person could, but they'd be dumb to do so under the awning of sexual assault. To make a comparison, it'd be like saying you were cut by a robber's spiked mace when you were really cut by a knife.

The "she made it all up" theory is what it is, but it's worth noting that it creates a mind as diabolical as the act was presumed evil. And by diabolical, I mean somebody willing to carry this out for years, purposely waffling with the dean's office, seeking out support groups, dragging her mom into it, tanking in school, gaining 25 pounds, etc.

 

[PW2]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

This story did not happen. I am 99.9 percent certain of it.

So the writer -- and the school -- is getting majorly trolled by this group and/or this college student?

Because, remember, this story isn't just a rape tale, but a tale of bureaucracy and a person getting caught up in the UVa system. So the person exists and the person is pursuing some kind of recourse, and has been for some time.

While it's possible that the writer embellished details, where else would she have gotten those details but the student? And if there was a discrepancy between the story the writer wrote and what the writer was told, we would have heard about it by now.

I think that very little of this story occurred the way that the woman told the Rolling Stone writer it occurred, and I think it is possible that none of it happened the way the woman said it happened.

There's a difference between "she made most of it up" and "she made it all up."

I don't know what she'd gain -- the student -- by making most of it up. The RS story isn't merely about the viciousness of the crime -- in fact, it switches pretty quickly from that -- and embellishing details (which she would have had to do from the very beginning) wouldn't have been necessary if she'd been raped in a more "plausible" way. Think about it: The point of embellishment would be to create a narrative that was more plausible to believe, not less. In theory a person could, but they'd be dumb to do so under the awning of sexual assault. To make a comparison, it'd be like saying you were cut by a robber's spiked mace when you were really cut by a knife.

The "she made it all up" theory is what it is, but it's worth noting that it creates a mind as diabolical as the act was presumed evil. And by diabolical, I mean somebody willing to carry this out for years, purposely waffling with the dean's office, seeking out support groups, dragging her mom into it, tanking in school, gaining 25 pounds, etc.

It would require one person, not seven.

And it would require that person to be mentally ill.

This scenario is far more plausible than the other one, that it is true.

 

[doctorquant]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

In this alleged Virginia case, seven men set up a violent assault of a stone cold sober woman that they knew and that their friend was dating, then violently and degradingly raped her one after the other, for hours. These are educated men. During the course of this, they said things like, "We had to do it, so you do, too!"

It does beg credulity, doesn't it?

This WP article looks back at the 1990 book "Fraternity Gang Rape." It sounds like the book has been generally well-regarded and considered authoritative on the matter. Based on that book, none of the behavior described in the RS article would be out of character in this environment.

"There is a similarity of pattern in these incidents," Lois G. Forer wrote in the foreword to the landmark 1990 book "Fraternity Gang Rape." "The men are on their own 'turf,' whether it be a part of a park, a shack, or a fraternity house. The identity of the woman is irrelevant. Anyone who happens to be at or near the premises will suffice. All the men drink a great deal of liquor. Then, in the presence of the entire group, each has sex in turn with the female. … While individually they probably would not engage in such brutal or degrading conduct, when reinforced by their companions they exhibit no sense of what most men and women consider decency or compassion."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2014/11/24/university-of-virginias-rape-scandal-and-the-fraternity-gang-rape-culture/?tid=hp_mm

It's not that I don't believe the young woman, it's that I just have a very, very hard time getting my head around the idea that a handful of reasonably intelligent young men would not only commit such a crime, but would prepare in advance, over an extended period of time, to do it. That's just monstrous stuff.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

That said, at the very least, I would insist on a comment or a "no comment" from the dean to whom she allegedly told the story. The rest of the article is a collection of unrelated anecdotes or data.

UVa is not gonna let that dean talk. The president does that.

Here's how it would go at my school ...

Assistant Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Student Affairs Sidney Sinecure referred questions about Mooniversity's investigation to the university's office of general counsel. Speaking for that office, Avery Asssitter said, "The university's investigation is ongoing," but Asssitter would not comment further.

Then at least you have something more than a red flag suggesting you didn't properly source the article.

 

[JayFarrar]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

In this alleged Virginia case, seven men set up a violent assault of a stone cold sober woman that they knew and that their friend was dating, then violently and degradingly raped her one after the other, for hours. These are educated men. During the course of this, they said things like, "We had to do it, so you do, too!"

It does beg credulity, doesn't it?

Nope.

Pretty clear none of ya'll are terribly familiar with the current-day Greek system.

Not only do I believe her story to be true. Her story is one I'm remarkably familiar that happened at another college two time zones away.

That isn't to indict the entire system, but at some schools, what fraternities do and get away with is staggering.

Rape is already violent and degrading. So you can't rape someone violently and degradingly anyway.

 

[JayFarrar]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

Found this on my first Google

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2010/02/26/4404/undetected-rapists-campus-troubling-plague-repeat-offenders

A nearly five year old article, here's an interesting passage

Repeat offenders may have struck several college campuses in recent years.

In one of the initial stories published as part of the Center for Public Integrity's investigation, former University of Virginia student Kathryn Russell recounted that she was assaulted and that the university found her alleged assailant not responsible for sexual assault, issuing him a verbal reprimand for using bad judgment. The following year, Russell recounted, she learned her alleged assailant was accused of raping another woman. For the second complaint, he was found responsible, but that finding was overturned after he appealed.

Russell has described additional alleged victims of the same man identifying themselves to her after she went public with her description of how the university offered her little support and shrouded the campus judicial process in secrecy.

Here's more

http://www.readthehook.com/95992/cover-how-uva-turns-its-back-rape

But, yep, the girl in the Rolling Stone article made it all up because of every woman is like Gone Girl or something.

 

[Songbird]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

" ... because everyone woman is like Gone Girl or something" is a great line for a book or movie.

 

[PW2]

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

The Rolling Stone piece is not at all like "Gone Girl." The dialogue in "Gone Girl" is much more believable.