If your son were unconscious behind a dumpster
Jen Gunter asks a very pertinent question about Brock Turner’s father that I wish I’d thought to ask myself.
And as for Brock Turner’s father who feels that his son doesn’t deserve jail for one 20 minute period of bad behavior (or an “action” as he called it) in a life of otherwise “good,” I guess I’d say if your son were unconscious behind a dumpster and an otherwise “good man” were caught raping your son would you think the injuries not serious and what punishment do you think that man would deserve?
And how deeply would you mourn for that man’s lost ability to enjoy a good ribeye steak?
Quite frankly I am pretty suspicious about the father’s behaviour. He certainly seems anxious to suggest certain activities are just boyish high spirits.
Y’see I can understand the argument regarding a woman who is drunk and appears compliant – note, I don’t agree with it but I understand where people are coming from when they argue for it – but how on earth can anyone EVER see assaulting an unconscious person as anything other than a crime. There’s no way you can convince yourself she’s consenting BECAUSE SHE’S UNCONSCIOUS. There’s not a whole lot of grey area there.
^ Hey, I’ll never criticise anyone for failing to close italics! [Whistles while looking innocent]
The whole ‘action’ thing is really sticking in my head frankly. It’s such an oblique mealy mouthed minimisation. Either the father doesn’t actually believe it was ‘just an action’ and wants to protect his son, right or wrong. Or, the father really does believe that and we can then see where the son gets it from and I would regard both men as dangerous to others. My money is on the later.
The ’20 minutes of bad behavior’ defence is so grotesque. How long does it take to squeeze a trigger and committ murder?
Steamshovelmama @1: I’m starting to refer to this as “The Hastert Rule”, named after Danny Hastert, the now-disgraced former House Speaker, whose career imploded over allegations he’d downplayed the sexual harassment of Congressional pages by GOP lawmakers–and who was just recently convicted of a money-shuffling scheme directly related to his efforts to cover up his own sexual predations back when he was a high school wrestling coach.
In short: “There’s always a reason.”
Whenever someone pushes a narrative that downplays the seriousness of sexual misconduct, it’s a fairly safe bet that, if they themselves are not guilty of such, then someone in their close circle is. When some jackass claims that ‘boys will be boys’ and that young men cannot help but take advantage of an unconscious woman, the next question out of the interviewer’s mouth should be, “So, how many women did you rape when you were in college?” or whatever–after all, if men can’t help themselves, well, that would suggest the speaker also has been in that situation. It might at least make them a little less comfortable putting that argument out there.
Excellent question.
How grotesque is it that there are legions of people stepping up to defend Brock’s father for using the word “action”? Very. The answer is very.
It’s an alien concept to me. I’m a Yorkshire lad. In Yorkshire we make art of passive-aggression. Visiting family is an exercise in seething resentment. We see our parents twice a year if we’re unlucky and they’ve spent the intervening months working out how best to humiliate us. It’s fucked up but still vastly better than pretending a rapist somehow got the raw end of the deal.
I’m in my forties and my parents are still going on about that time when I was about 4 and smuggled a crab into the house to be my pet. Aunts and uncles shake their heads in consternation at this unseemly behaviour.
As awful as my family members are I can rest pretty much assured that they’d never endorse rape. If I were a rapist they’d be gleeful as they stuffed me under the bus and rightly so. I don’t understand the instincts of this guy in his downplaying of what his son did. And I sure as shit don’t understand the people defending the father, let alone the son.
latsot, #6:
I haven’t read anybody yet defending the father, but I don’t doubt that some people do, as you say. To me this reaction is related, once again, to the modern, politically motivated, sickening insistence on the family as the only possible source of human happiness and comfort. Any time somebody screams in a film “But it is my son!!,” I seethe. Usually, this attitude is used to actually justify injustice, illegality, arbitrariness, selfishness; but it is conveyed as one of the best modern virtues, feelity feelings in ther purest, noblest state.
Excuse me – I know this hurts for you, but it is a lovely story! I’d like a child like that for a friend! At the same time, you remind me of other cruel stories… but Gerald Durrell would approve, surely?
Thank you for your comments about Yorkshire passive aggression. I remember the sadness I felt when I learnt the verb to slag somebody off – we Spaniards don’t have an equivalent. But when you write
I couldn’t agree more.
It seems crazy to just assume that Brock’s behavior had no precedent. Does anyone really just get ‘struck rapist’ out of the clear blue sky?
The cringe-worthy attitude of the father, and the fact that the judge was himself a Stanford Athlete, speak to the consistent minimalisation of this kind of violence. In large part because it isn’t all that extreme compared to ‘normal dating’ behavior in that privileged, alcohol-saturated culture.
@latsot #6
Yes. I have a reasonably good relationship with my parents but were I guilty of something like this then, yes, under the bus it would be. And damned right, too.