Jump to content

Rolling Stone apologizes over account of UVA gang rape


Pong Messiah
 Share

Recommended Posts

After the clamor died down and people began thinking critically and pointing out questionable/inconsistent aspects of the UVA gang rape story, you could feel this rushing forth like a herd of angry mastadons:

 

Rolling Stone apologizes over account of UVA gang rape

 

Of course, UVA has already taken action and more people are going to remember "OMG horrible gang rape happened!" than "OMG Rolling Stone apologized!"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe it was an honest mistake. And I can completely understand why they believed her.

 

I'm really upset that Jackie's story may not be 100% true. I believe wholeheartedly that this sort of thing does still happen, but every time somebody lies about it, it makes things just that much harder for real victims. Victims who often have nothing to offer but their own account of what has happened.

 

The whole thing just makes me sad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believed it without thinking about it when I first read it.

 

When somebody came along a few days later and started bringing up issues w/ the shards of glass and the (insanely selfish and irrational) behavior of Jackie's friends among other things, I was like "Damn, I wish I had read that article with more of a critical eye!"

 

:eek:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The article was written to appeal to your emotions, not your sense of logic. Written very well in that aspect. The entire point of the article was to call attention to what has become an epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses. Jackie's story was just the heavy anchor to set your heart where RS wanted it to be. Unfortunately, again, this might be the only thing people ever remember of this expose, but it was just one aspect (though heavy in its emotional argument) of a larger story and a larger issue.

 

I still believe that alleged rape victims should have their stories given the benefit of the doubt when they're first reported, and investigated as such. Though that doesn't mean that I believe that the alleged rapists shouldn't be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The entire point of the article was to call attention to what has become an epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses.

But is there an epidemic of sexual assaults on college campuses?

 

There has been a steep decline in rape in the United States since the early 1970s, and there are reasons to doubt the prevalence of a "rape epidemic" on college campuses:

The Bureau of Justice Statistics' "Violent Victimization of College Students" report tells a different and more plausible story about campus culture. During the years surveyed, 1995-2002, the DOJ found that there were six rapes or sexual assaults per thousand per year. Across the nation's four million female college students, that comes to about one victim in forty students. Other DOJ statistics show that the overall rape rate is in sharp decline: since 1995, the estimated rate of female rape or sexual assault victimizations has decreased by about 60 percent.

 

Of course, there are still far too many college women who are victims of sexual assault. But there's little evidence to support the claim that campus rape is an "epidemic," as Yale student activist Alexandra Brodsky recently wrote in the Guardian.

To me, it seems reasonable that if violent crimes like rape, which are suffered inordinately by poor and uneducated people, are declining nationally, that they would not remain the same (or be growing!) in places where people are generally better off financially and intellectually.

 

Of course "Wow, that 1/4 figure is wrong! It was less likely to happen to me than I thought!" is probably of little solace to somebody who has suffered a violent crime; people are mugged, raped, even murdered on college campuses just as people suffer violent crimes in dingy alleys. I'm just saying I see reasons for skepticism about claims of an "epidemic."

I still believe that alleged rape victims should have their stories given the benefit of the doubt when they're first reported, and investigated as such. Though that doesn't mean that I believe that the alleged rapists shouldn't be considered innocent until proven guilty.

Agreed!

 

:eek:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not just talking about rape or violent assaults. I don't know what the DOJ is using in their criteria, but I'd like to know if it includes only reported and/or crimes that resulted in some form of legal action. I don't have the research at hand, but I'm pretty sure I've read many times over that the majority of sexual assault cases still go unreported. This is also partially because many people are still reluctant to admit to what constitutes sexual assault. The real statistic is probably somewhere between 1 in 40 and 1 in 5.

 

I wouldn't be surprised at all if more assaults happen on college campuses than in the rest of society. Percentage wise at least. The cultures contained within a college are like little rapey petri dishes. (deliberate exaggeration) The drinking, the partying, drug-use, sudden independence coupled with lack of life experience, and general nonchalant attitudes about sex would logically breed an environment more conducive to sexual assaults.

 

Regardless of the actual statistics, even if the word epidemic is not appropriate, I would still advocate that we treat campus sexual assault like an epidemic. Even one a year is too many.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm really upset that Jackie's story may not be 100% true. I believe wholeheartedly that this sort of thing does still happen, but every time somebody lies about it, it makes things just that much harder for real victims. Victims who often have nothing to offer but their own account of what has happened.

 

The whole thing just makes me sad.

This goes back to what I said in the Bill Cosby thread. This issue has become so politicized over the last few decades that all hope of rational discourse about it has all but evaporated. A look at any comments section following any article regarding this subject will make that abundantly clear. Cerina's spot on here - the real losers here are the real victims.

 

Regardless of the actual statistics, even if the word epidemic is not appropriate, I would still advocate that we treat campus sexual assault like an epidemic. Even one a year is too many.

There's a fine line between treating the issue with the gravity and respect it deserves, and allowing dodgy statistics to perpetuate a climate of undue fear and hysteria so as to appease powerful ideological blocs in academic and media environments. Ideological blocs who rely on this climate of fear and hysteria to keep their constituent members loyal and dominate discourse on this subject. If this epidemic of sexual assault turns out to be overstated, it will reflect badly on both the movement to bring awareness to the issue and cast a shadow of doubt over real victims who do come forward.

 

The real tragedy is that certain outspoken groups have a twisted sort of vested interest in a "1 in 3 women" kind of statistic being true ("Look at how bestial men; male sexuality in particular really is!), while their opponents have a different but no less corrupt interest in a "1 in 40 women" kind of statistic being true ("Look at how conniving and dishonest all those gold digging, man hating whores are, fabricating rape stories like that!) If there's one thing we don't need, it's either or both these groups and their attending attitudes using a gravely serious issue as ammunition in a gender war. The battle of the sexes belongs in amateur night at your local comedy club. Rape and sexual assault end up being trivialized by the clashes of sexual insecurity and fragile egos that underly your ten-a-penny feminist vs MRA flame war on the matter. Victims deserve better. Far better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Everything that's happened with this ordeal is just really unfortunate all around.

Rolling Stone's political and current affairs journalism typically takes a case example as a part of covering a much larger story, it's just that their case example this time around was a poor source. Though that doesn't take away responsibility from them for not doing their due diligence and checking the authenticity of their source. It's really not much better than Nancy Grace going on a crusade against the Duke lacrosse team years ago. But alternatively, the fact that somebody making up a claim put themselves in the spotlight to this degree is such a setback to legitimate claims of campus rape. I've read a lot online in the past day trying to attribute that specifically to Rolling Stone, and certainly they have part of that responsibility, but absolutely not all of it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There seems to be legitimate debate about what happened, if anything happened, and the details. Not a clear cut case of someone falsifying a claim, but seems to be a pretty clear cut case of a decision to publish a story that wasn't investigated very well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In journalism where peoples reputations can be ruined by what you write,you had better dot your i's and cross your t's.

That is the guidepost of....principled journalists. Those behind the RS piece are not in that category, as an aggressive need to reach a (seemingly) preselected conclusion was the driving force of the story, instead of initiating a surgical investigation of the matter--the very thing criminal situations demand. Some care more about an ideological drive than the victims they breathlessly claim to care for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Crappy sensationalistic journalism is part of the problem. But it goes deeper than that. Rolling Stone has an audience to pander to, and interest groups whose toes are NOT to be stepped on. Had Rolling Stone adopted a more skeptical stance towards the UAV story - which would definitely would have been a more principled and ethical course of action to be sure, it would have been slammed for alleged "misogyny", promotion of "rape culture", refusal to "believe women" and "acceptance of the status quo" - among a ton of other thought stopping copy-pastas from the vast feminist blogosphere in both social and mainstream media. Boycotts and letter writing campaigns would have ensued, and eventually both the author of the article and the higher-ups at Rolling Stone would have eventually had to issue a public apology or the like. The journalist we're now slamming for a lack of due diligence would most likely not be writing for Rolling Stone in the future, though that's probably the case now also. MRA and the odd libertarian site would raise questions, but they'd be implicitly discredited due to the political implications of their ideological leanings. Which are far from pure themselves, to be sure.

 

Academia and mass media are definitely complicit in all of this, make no mistake. But their complicity goes far beyond a mere unwillingness to fact check the particulars of this story. This is about advocacy trumping academic and journalistic integrity being a thoroughly institutionalized pattern in mainstream culture industry. This is what happens when claims made in the name of or on behalf of allegedly "oppressed groups" are declared off limits to scrutiny and dissent, at least in credible public forums. On the grounds that such scrutiny is itself an act of "privilege" or "oppression." The real problem here is not that feminist advocates have called for this degree of politicization of even such fundamental liberal notions as due process, but rather that academics, media leaders and politicians at the highest level who should know better have instead collectively chosen to acquiesce to such demands.

 

Misplaced chivalry and male guilt have been a Trojan horse within which the Leninist ideas of "who-whom" wherein actions are judged by the political categories with which their perpetrators are associated and whom the beneficiaries are, rather than by objective truth or falsehood (in as far as these can be ascertained) have been brought into the mainstream of western thinking. This embarrassing little incident, which will most surely be rationalized away and swept under the rug, will barely be the tip of the iceberg.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is also the fact that with new DOJ data being released, which shows the 1-in-5 statistic to be bogus (surprise: you are more likely to be sexually assaulted if you are not a college student), even NPR and The Federalist are finding themselves on the same side. NPR because they want to be serious and respectable, The Federalist, because they'll run with any chance they get to trumpet progressive/feminist silliness.

It's good to see this come out in the last few days. Anybody with a basic understanding of statistics and surveys has long known that the 1-in-5 figure is extremely sketchy at best, especially when we know that violent crime (this includes rape!) overall has dropped significantly in the last two decades (and now, even the authors of the oft-cited 1-in-5 study have issued a caveat about using that number). Of course, using such a high number in the service of rape hysteria may be seductive, but it is also dangerous:

This kind of hysteria may be ugly, but for campus activists and bureaucrats it's a source of power: If there's a "campus rape crisis," that means that we need new rules, bigger budgets, and expanded power and self-importance for all involved, with the added advantage of letting you call your political opponents (or anyone who threatens funding) "pro rape." If we focus on the truth, however — rapidly declining rape rates already, without any particular "crisis" programs in place — then voters, taxpayers, and university trustees will probably decide to invest resources elsewhere. So for politicians and activists, a phony crisis beats no crisis.
At least until people catch on. As George Washington University law professor John Banzhaf notes, "After a while, the boy who cried wolf wasn't believed, and the women who cry rape may likewise not be believed, especially with the accusations of rape at Duke University and the University of Virginia fresh in people's minds."

When we start seeing potential rapists on every date, behind every bush, under every rock, even though the numbers do not back this up... when we've reached a point where folks start saying (with a straight face!) that simply lying to somebody in order to get into their pants (consensually) is "rape," sane people are going to start tuning out. This is brutal and completely unfair to people who are assaulted, but it just is -- people's tolerance for being oversold and misled (even if it starts out as willful and in the service of a "greater good") is finite. You can only play the "All Rape, All Day, Every Day" channel at full volume for so long before it is taken about as seriously as the ol' color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System. And unlike the inadvertently hilarious terrorism color codes, I just cannot see how this is a good thing in any way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is also the fact that with new DOJ data being released, which shows the 1-in-5 statistic to be bogus (surprise: you are more likely to be sexually assaulted if you are not a college student).

This actually makes sense to me. I would think you're more likely to be raped some place more anonymous, which a college campus is not. Then again, I went to a nerdy college with an undergraduate population the size of a large, urban high school. Everyone knew everyone. And then within the Greek system (which I was also a part of), everyone also knows everyone. Everyone likes to hate on frat boys, but as a collective they usually try to avoid something that serious. They want to get girls into bed (like most male college students), but they don't want to get a rep for being the rape house. That's generally counter-productive.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's funny you bring up hating frats, because when I look back on it, I'm pretty sure the reason I uncritically took in the UVA story when I first read it was because I have always hated frat boys so much. I looked down on them for being so boring, painfully average in intelligence and taste, homogeneous and subordinate to "the group," etc... but at the same time was somewhat jealous of all the money they always seemed to have (for clothing, food, alcohol, weed, and tuition), and how so many of them had jobs waiting for them after they got the degree. There was also a pervasive attitude toward women, where a lot of these guys seemed to view them more as prized cattle than fellow human beings.

 

Of course, I was more than happy to take their money and alcohol, so my hatred couldn't have been that deep or principled.

 

But yeah -- the idea of a frat house being a rape-house (women as cattle, we do everything as a group) totally struck a narrative I was all too happy to go along with, and I didn't become skeptical until other people started pointing out inconsistencies I had conveniently glossed over.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

There is also the fact that with new DOJ data being released, which shows the 1-in-5 statistic to be bogus (surprise: you are more likely to be sexually assaulted if you are not a college student).

This actually makes sense to me. I would think you're more likely to be raped some place more anonymous, which a college campus is not.

 

Actually, like most violent crimes, I do believe rape is most often committed by someone you know rather than an anonymous stranger. (Though I'm seriously basing this off of Law & Order: SVU, so...yeah...)

 

And I fully believe that rape is much less common than sexual assault. Sexual assault is just such a wide catch-all for pretty much any unwanted sexual touching, and that's where most of the idiocy comes into play. Is it sexual assault for someone to misread signal and kiss you when you weren't expecting it? Probably not, but I know there are people who disagree with me. Is it sexual assault if some drunk asshat on the dance floor just reaches over to squeeze your boob? Absolutely, but is it worth reporting and filing charges over? Doubtful. Probably worth a swift kick to the nethers though.

 

It's these issues that I see coming into play more often on a college campus, because of the general age, immaturity, lack of responsibility, lack of experience, increased inebriation, etc. that you find in that environment. I mean, we're talking a demographic of people who are biologically not equipped to deal with impulse control, sexual or otherwise. Of course they're going to make a lot of the wrong decisions, but I do believe that a good number of those poor decisions are made by both parties and were probably consensual to at least a degree.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah Pong, it's really starting to look like the progressive's rejoinder to McCarthyism, or the Satanic panic, or something like that. Naturally, one can read a lot about witch hunts, moral panics, conspiracy theories and politically motivated fear mongering on progressive sites like Slate and Salon - when Christians are the ones engaging in it. When it's themselves ... silence.

 

Were there an intellectually vigorous conservative movement in the U.S, or anywhere in the English speaking world come to that, they'd be having a field day with this. And so they should. A loyal opposition keeps one on their toes. But what's really disheartening about this is that even the center right, let alone the far right, has pretty much completely abdicated the social sciences and academic politics to the leftist identity politics types who, like your article points out, benefit from "rape culture" hysteria. As such, it may be some time yet before significant opposition to this gains momentum, or as is more likely, it will simply peter out at some distant point in the future. In the meantime, what irreparable damage will be done to the fabric of relations between the sexes?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah Pong, it's really starting to look like the progressive's rejoinder to McCarthyism, or the Satanic panic, or something like that. Naturally, one can read a lot about witch hunts, moral panics, conspiracy theories and politically motivated fear mongering on progressive sites like Slate and Salon - when Christians are the ones engaging in it. When it's themselves ... silence.

 

Were there an intellectually vigorous conservative movement in the U.S, or anywhere in the English speaking world come to that, they'd be having a field day with this. And so they should. A loyal opposition keeps one on their toes. But what's really disheartening about this is that even the center right, let alone the far right, has pretty much completely abdicated the social sciences and academic politics to the leftist identity politics types who, like your article points out, benefit from "rape culture" hysteria. As such, it may be some time yet before significant opposition to this gains momentum, or as is more likely, it will simply peter out at some distant point in the future. In the meantime, what irreparable damage will be done to the fabric of relations between the sexes?

One quibble: some of Slate's coverage of the Rolling Stone debacle and its larger implications has been truly excellent. Really well thought-out, informative, and good about raising important further questions.

 

Regarding hysteria: as somebody who played a ton of D&D and listened to thrash metal in the 1980s, I couldn't agree with you more. I totally remember DEFCON SATAN. One thing I wonder, now that you've reminded me of those dark days (have not researched this myself or forgotten): how did all of those children who were supposedly being molested by evil cults cause people to react to charges of child abuse? Did the "cry wolf" scenarios have any effect on how they are dealt with today?

 

I'm not terribly worried about relations between the sexes deteriorating, to be honest. This may be harsh, but a lot of men who have "trouble" with women -- be it working/general communication/romance -- are going to have problems regardless of the social climate. Same with women who have "trouble" with men, though the specific issues within work/general communication/romance may differ somewhat. Some people just have serious, stubborn issues, even hostility toward the opposite sex (I'd say gender, but I think it may be more of a plumbing issue), and no amount of social engineering is going to fix them.

 

When I read articles with husbands and wives bitterly complaining about each other, I can't help but think that if we were in the 1950s or 1920s or 1800s and they had access to the Innarwebs, they'd still find stuff to snipe at one another about -- just different things.

 

And as for those people who communicate and harmonize well enough to get along with the opposite sex, I think they'll be fine and enjoy one another (mostly), regardless of social climate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Good Lord, did you guys read the CNN article? http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/16/us/uva-rape/index.html

 

It's looking more and more like the entire thing is fabricated. What I got from that article is it sounds like she made it up to get attention from a guy she had a crush on. WTF! So then how did Rolling Stone get ahold of the story?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah Pong, it's really starting to look like the progressive's rejoinder to McCarthyism, or the Satanic panic, or something like that. Naturally, one can read a lot about witch hunts, moral panics, conspiracy theories and politically motivated fear mongering on progressive sites like Slate and Salon - when Christians are the ones engaging in it. When it's themselves ... silence.

 

Were there an intellectually vigorous conservative movement in the U.S, or anywhere in the English speaking world come to that, they'd be having a field day with this. And so they should. A loyal opposition keeps one on their toes. But what's really disheartening about this is that even the center right, let alone the far right, has pretty much completely abdicated the social sciences and academic politics to the leftist identity politics types who, like your article points out, benefit from "rape culture" hysteria. As such, it may be some time yet before significant opposition to this gains momentum, or as is more likely, it will simply peter out at some distant point in the future. In the meantime, what irreparable damage will be done to the fabric of relations between the sexes?

Today's more astute members of the far right is in learning mode (ever so slowly) --adopting a forward-thinking strategy: allow the purveyors of leftist identity politics to hammer the population over head with agenda, eventually wearing out its welcome organically, rather than mount the kind of skull-splitting, "barricade the doors!" / "crimes against nature" / "bloody anarchy!" sessions they were engaging in during the height of Obama's popularity / media push for certain agendas.

 

Now, we must understand that stepping back and watching the Rolling Stones (and acolytes) of the world wear on the population does not eliminate the right's own damaged image as "oppressor/ devil," but in letting the opposition overdose with confidence in their attempt to *ahem* fundamentally changing America, they (the right) no longer have invest generations in trying to tell you what to do/think, but let the far left go so far, that the culture will be willing for changes / options once seen as politically suicidal.

 

It will not be easy for some to let the opposition to hang themselves, but they would do well to learn the patience to see it through--a better approach than Limbaugh-ing themselves into obscurity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.