Heck NO!! Just look at the new horror that Brock Turner is hurling at his victim!
Just days ago, the sentence of Oscar Pistorius, the South African double amputee who murdered his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, was doubled by the appeals judge on his case. Let’s hope that a new judge in the Turner case follows suit and demands that Turner be remanded for the stiff 14 year term that suits his crime!
Brock Turner’s victim hit on an exceptionally descriptive term to explain how rape made her feel. Even though she was unconscious during the entire episode, she expressed, in her stirring statement, that she felt “contaminated.” Continue reading Contamination – What an apt description for sexual assault!
California Judge Aaron Persky, the misogynist dinosaur who let rapist Brock Turner off with a short six month sentence, has volunteered to move from criminal to civil court. Doing so will not assure that he will remain in civil court for the rest of his career. He could request to return at any time.
Bad judgement is bad judgment no matter where a case is tried. Brock Turner’s case, or a case of sexual assault against anyone else, could be tried as a civil matter. And civil trials are often settled because of judicial pressure or litigated without a jury. Can you hear his instructions to opposing counsel? “I expect you to settle this matter because how much do you think I’ll award your client for 20 minutes of action?”
Persky has no concept of violation. Civil victims are as entitled to justice as cases that appear in criminal court. And Persky has demonstrated that he simply does not relate to the harm committed against victims. He should be stripped of his judicial role, not parked in a different court where he can hand out inappropriate damages!
Please sign the Change.org petition to remove Judge Persky from the bench.
In three separate studies, one in the Midwest, one in CA and one in Canada, separated by 30 years, men were asked, “If you could force a woman to have sex with you, and you knew you wouldn’t get caught, would you do it.?” Consistently, over 30% of the participants said “Yes.” Then they were asked, “If you could rape a woman, knowing you could get away with it, would you do it?” The number of “Yes” responses dropped to approximately 13%. Obviously, 17% of the participants had no idea they were simply being asked the same question a different way.
Why so many words for “rape?”
Today, states have adopted a variety of words for “rape” in order to get the defilement of non-consensual sex across to their populations…. sexual assault, sexual battery, sexual misconduct, etc. They seem to be throwing the baby out with the bath water; however, because the public doesn’t grasp that it’s all the same horrid defilement of sexual sanctity….. just using different words. I even saw a recent argument that Brock Turner didn’t rape the woman, he “only” sexually assaulted her….. so his punishment shouldn’t be so harsh!
Consent. Do we really need to say more?
The principle premise for all sex crimes, no matter what you call them, is lack of consent. And a great many folks don’t really know what “consent” means. It doesn’t mean that you nodded your head and said “yes” when someone tricked you into doing so. Nor does it mean that you didn’t object because you were too incapacitated at the time, or froze because you were terrorized.
Most folks, including legislators and police officers don’t clearly understand that there’s a cavernous gap between “assenting” and “consenting” to sex. When you nod you head, “yes,” if the person has tricked you, drugged you, intoxicated you, or pursued sex with you upon finding you in those conditions – or unconscious – they know full well that you’re not “consenting” to sex.
Violence is an aggressive, aggravated form of rape, which deserves the utmost penalty. But there are quiet, insidious, covert forms of rape as well. All should be punished. Consent means that you are fully knowledgeable, informed and voluntarily cooperating. Model Penal Code distinctly tells us that consent that is “tricked” from us is not “voluntary.” Any sex act performed without consent is a crime.
Not all sex crimes can be prosecuted; not because they didn’t happen, but because there is insufficient proof for a conviction. But whether there is or is not a sufficient body of proof to try the case, the offender committed a criminal act and knows that they did so. Our penal codes in every state should be consistent in dealing with and prosecuting sexual defilement.
Nazi Germany and Consent
The Nuremberg Trials from World War II gave us a clear understanding of what “consent” truly means. I have included the explanation in (soon-to-be-released) Combating Romance Scams, Why Lying to Get Laid Is a Crime! What follows is how “consent” should be explained by the penal codes of every state. This explanation has been adapted directly from the Nuremberg Code appearing in Federal regulation that was established due to medical experiments conducted on concentration camp prisoners. It guides our knowledge of both “assent” and “consent” today.
Assent – Superficial agreement which is given “on the face of it.” Assent provides acquiescence and compliance, but lacks the characteristics of being informed and knowledgeable about the action taking place. Example:, a child who is not yet the age of “reason” can only provide “assent,” but their parents are required to provide “consent” on their behalf.
Consent – A person providing consent must have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, over-reaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the sexual partner and action taking place to enable her or him to make an understood and enlightened decision.
Brock Turner’s father showed us exactly why Brock Turner is a sex offender!
Dan Turner, Brock’s father, never taught his son the defilement of rape because he failed to understand it himself. He wrote to the judge to request leniency for his son who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman.
An absurd statement also came from Brock Turner’s long-time friend, Leslie Rasmussen, drummer for the band, Good English. “Rape on campus isn’t always because people are rapists,” she said. She expressed concern that alcohol changed people’s behaviors and made them do things they otherwise would not do. Perhaps Brock Turner’s case can serve as a warning to college students who think drinking and partying are benign behaviors…. just fun and “normal” entertainment.
When it comes to sex, every human being on the planet is responsible to only engage with people they haven’t tricked, overwhelmed, or taken advantage of. What is so hard to understand about that? People who do so are, in fact, rapists. A person’s life can change in an instant when they lose control of themselves and harm others while in that condition. That’s why drunks who kill people in DUIs go to jail. People who rape in that condition should go to jail as well.
For further details about the law that should be enacted in every state to properly identify the difference between “assenting” and “consenting” to sex, be sure to read Combating Romance Scams, Why Lying to Get Laid Is a Crime! when it’s released in July. Register for your copy by clicking this link. There’s no obligation and you may actually win a FREE Kindle Fire by doing so!