Recusant said:
I'm assuming that here you're referring to Brock Turner. You can argue whether what we did should constitute rape, but under the law, it doesn't, which is why the rape charges were dropped.
It was, however, entirely analogous to rape and in many countries (including my own) would have carried an equivalent mandatory prison term, so I have no problem with calling him a rapist.
I mean, technically female on male rape is not rape under the law either.
Recusant said:
He was convicted on three counts of sexual assault, and sentenced very lightly (six months, from a maximum of fourteen years)- as courts often do for first offenders, which he was.
Sexual assault is a very broad term. Technially, rape is merely one particular a form of sexual assault. Some juristictions (most notably Canada) do not have a separate offense for rape at all.
Specifically, he was convicted of two counts of sexually penetrating someone with a foreign object while they were drunk/unconscious and one count of sexual assault with intent to rape. That the former two exist as a specific crime and yet does not carry an equivalent sentence to rape is frankly a legal technicality and one that fully deserves to be flagged up as an example of horrendous injustice.
Recusant said:
If you get drunk and have a regrettable sexual encounter, somehow the standard of responsibility disappears entirely, and you can't consent even if you wanted to; you were illegally taken advantage of by the other person, even if they were also drunk, which is what happened in the Turner case.
...And, amazingly, law no longer matters to this argument as soon as the legal consensus turns against accused sex offenders. Our society is
insane!, why can't they just see that these poor drunk guys can't help forcing foreign objects inside people!
They were drunk!
Sex does not just happen. People don't randomly fall over and end up inside each other (outside of bad sex comedies), a sex act requires someone to initiate it and that person is responsible for having a reasonable belief that whatever they're doing is consensual. Do you genuinely believe, in this case, that that was true?
Recusant said:
He fingered a drunk woman and kept doing it after she passed out.
That was his story, and your uncritical belief in it is interesting.
Recusant said:
If vigilante justice becomes acceptable, we won't need the government to declare it won't prosecute murder; it'll already have done so.
It's all very well to talk about justice, but try not to forget that you're defending a broken system. For all the media attention on this case, I will say one thing.. Brock Turner represents the absolutely exceptional case of a sex offender actually being convicted for a first offence. He spent a day in prison, which is more than most people in his position ever do. His victim recieved widespread support and sympathy in a way most victims could only dream of.
The law constantly and routinely fails, in the case of rape (particularly rape by white, college age men). That's not because the system is incapable of delivering justice or because justice is impossible only in this one special case, but because the people involved more often than not do not have the skills or interest to be able to deliver, and because more often than not those people seem to be more moved by sympathy for the accused than sympathy than their alleged victims.
Rape or sexual assault is not, as internet mythology would tell you, a uniquely difficult crime to prosecute. It is relatively clear cut. The fact that I feel compelled to point out that this the system is so thoroughly broken that I would genuinely recommend anyone reading this who has been raped
not to prosecute unless they are willing to do so purely to make a point (otherwise report the crime and move on) is a tragedy. The system is broken for the same reason your attitude is broken, because of this misguided desire to leap to sympathetic attachment with sexually predatory men over sexually wounded women.
Using the fear of mob rule to defend a genuine lack of access to justice doesn't really indicate a respect for the law so much as a lack of willingness to rock the boat. Yes, replacing the law with mob justice is usually bad, but that doesn't equate to the law itself actually being good.
