It’s Sexual Assault Awareness Week at Notre Dame, and a new group called Men Against Violence has formed “to encourage men to take a proactive stance against sexual violence,” which I think is really awesome. I’ve spoken out at several USC “Take Back The Night” rallies about the need for just that sort of effort. On a more sobering note, however, a SMC student alleges that she was sexually assaulted over the weekend, possibly at Zahm Hall.
Not that this in any way justifies the crime, but the story notes that the girl was an “escort”–in other words, a legalized female prostitute. This goes back to the whole “She was asking for it” argument, which I don’t intend whatsoever to defend. But the risk of sexual assault, rape, or some other form of sexual coercion surely are much greater when you engage in risky behavior, especially sans bodyguard. When you dance around fire, don’t be surprised if you trip and get burned.
Andrew
I understand your point, but at the same time it is pretty ridiculous. No means NO. I also dont believe that being an escort is legalizing anything. The woman has two children and has a full load at school, she is trying to make it. Did you know that almost 80 percent of single mothers go on assistance?
My point is that I am a mother of two, and wow, the lengths I would go to to feed and clothe my kids are endless. I know you werent in anyway condoning but I just dont feel that should even be issue in this. Lets face it we all know better.
IMO, all the guilty Dukies should get serious jailtime so they also can have the experience of being on the receiving end of coerced sodomy.
And also the woman who got raped is an idiot. I need to put food on the table therefore I’ll become a whore? Do I really need to take a line out of David’s playbook here and say that the ends don’t justify the means? In some cases I think they do, but this isn’t one of them. Whatever happened to modesty and dignity? Is it really necessary to compromise your values so your kids can have brand new iPods like the rest of the kids in school?
Andrew, the woman is an idiot? Why because she wasn’t aware that athletes have a permission slip to rape as they see fit? She was a dancer,an escort- that doesn’t mean she was a whore- perhaps you should learn that not all in those professions are.
And before you say anything more- take this in for a moment- even if she was standing half naked in the middle of NYC with a sign that said “will blow for 5 bucks”- as soon as the words no come out of her mouth, any continued sexual advances are wrong, and illegal.
Men who walk around putting any blame on the victim- like you- are a part of the problem. No wonder so many young men are becoming rapist- look at the type of people raising them.
A woman has the right to say no, and believe it or not despite how much the “no” might insult some asshat’s manhood- nothing, NOTHING! not what she is wearing, what she does for a living, NOTHING! gives three men the right to rape, sodomize, and beat a woman.
Lilo, if you actually read what Andrew said instead of assuming that he is your archetypal male villain, you’ll see that he isn’t “putting any blame on the victim” for getting raped, let alone suggesting that anyone has “a permission slip to rape.” Instead, he’s making the rather obvious point that risky behavior is, well, risky — this is why college women adopt the “buddy system” at parties, isn’t it? not because they’d be “asking for it” otherwise, but rather, because they’re smart enough to know that life is risky, some men are assholes and/or sexual predators, and therefore precautionary measures are a good idea — and also criticizing other choices that this particular woman made, with regard to becoming, in Andrew’s words, “an ‘escort’–in other words, a legalized female prostitute.” That, obviously, is what he meant by calling her an “idiot”; a fair reading clearly reveals that. He made clear, however, that this does not “in any way justif[y] the crime” and added, “This goes back to the whole ‘She was asking for it’ argument, which I don’t intend whatsoever to defend.” Oh yeah, and he said that the rapists “should get serious jailtime,” which is not exactly what you’d expect to hear from someone who believes that a woman doesn’t have the right to say “no” because doing so “might insult some asshat’s manhood.” (Seriously, huh? Where are you getting that last part from? Certainly not from anything Andrew said.) If Andrew believed she “didn’t have the right to say no,” he wouldn’t be advocating “serious jailtime” for the rapists!
Look, I wouldn’t have said the things Andrew said; he was asking for trouble by even “going there,” despite the disclaimers and the fact that he obviously wasn’t blaming the victim per se. But as per usual, the ridiculous hyperbolic response to Andrew’s un-PC but not-nearly-as-bad-as-you-are-making-it-out-to-be comments force me to defend him when I’d really rather not. Have you no sense of nuance, no ability to tell the difference between a merely controversial statement and a thoroughly condemnible one?
Oh, and in case I need to establish my bona fides… I know whole bunch of women who have been sexually assaulted. You won’t find a man anywhere more disgusted by rapists and sexual predators, nor more committed to the idea that those who commit sexual assault are solely morally responsible for their actions and must pay the consequences. But despite all of the above, I am also a rational, logical person, able to distinguish between people who are truly “part of the problem” and those, like Andrew, who merely have a penchant for controversy.
P.S. Lilo, you did make one legitimate rebuttal to Andrew’s comments, namely, “She was a dancer,an escort- that doesn’t mean she was a whore- perhaps you should learn that not all in those professions are.” Fair enough. But the rest of your response rebuts points that Andrew didn’t make, nor did he imply them (if you explicitly disclaim a viewpoint, it’s hard to simultaneously imply it). Instead, you are unjustifiably inferring them, attributing them to Andrew, and condemning him for them.
You can criticize him for making the points he made at all, e.g., “I understand you aren’t blaming the victim, but why are you even saying these things in the first place? Couldn’t they easily lend credibility to someone else’s blame-the-victim argument?” Those would be potentially legitimate criticisms. But to flat-out accuse of Andrew of believing that these players had a “permission slip to rape,” when he explicitly said otherwise, is just stupid and offensive.
I won’t take a backseat to Brendan or anyone else in my disgust for rape, but I also am not going to ignore the fact that many people willingly put themselves into dangerous situations. As an example, my right to yell “F**k all n****rs!” is protected by the Constitution, but does that mean it’s smart for me to roll down Crenshaw on a Friday night shouting that? In some sense, you might say I deserved whatever ends up happening to me, though you also likely wouldn’t oppose my attackers from being properly punished, either. I’d probably even make the Darwin Awards and you’d all have a good laugh at my removal from the gene pool.
But how is that different than this rape situation? If you’re going to dress and act like a piece of red meat in front of a den of hungry lions, should you be surprised when you’re attacked? If you’re going to dress and act like a whore, don’t be surprised if men treat you like a whore, whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not. In this case, the woman was an escort–not a dancer, not a stripper–and unless you live in a cave, you should know by now that “escort” is the euphemism for legal prostitute. Open up the LA Weekly ads or go do some googling, I guarantee you the results are NSFW.
Our culture needs to do two things: Punish rapists to the full extent of the law; and teach women to stop dressing and acting like whores. In fact, I’d argue that the latter is far more conducive to reducing instances of sexual assault than the former, since most men are well aware of the penalties for sexual assault, they just feel like they can still get away with it–and oftentimes they can because the evidence and question of consent is ambiguous.
I don’t mind being beaten up on this issue, because despite how un-PC this is, the point is so obviously commonsensical that, as Brendan notes, sororities and similar groups now teach women to be smarter, have a buddy, and otherwise avoid situations that could be dangerous. And in a “Girls Gone Wild” era, where multitudes of young women behave like whores, it only becomes that much more dangerous and uncomfortable for the rest of women who do behave like ladies, but are nevertheless pressured or coerced into public of private acts they’re ashamed of.
Bottom line: We can throw half the male population in prison for rape, but the problem isn’t going to disappear until women learn to start acting like ladies.
“Bottom line: We can throw half the male population in prison for rape, but the problem isn’t going to disappear until women learn to start acting like ladies.
I disagree though, rape is carnal and has existed prior to the current whore-dom trend. (Way before being a whore was cool.) Don’t go getting the cart before the horse. These are the times you slip over the line of being observant and instead aim to provoke and disturb. I’ve followed you so far and agreed, like brendan I read your entire message and understood it. While the probability of rape increases for a dancing escort, alone, half-naked, in a frat house, of angry drunken athletes, in North Carolina, (observant point) rape would not stop if women “learned” to start acting like ladies. That point would get you skinned by any man whose un-whore-like wife or daughter was the victim of rape. (Cause that happens too.) Or how about men who rape men, like priests? When will alterboys stop being such sluts? No no no, I was with you till “the bottom line,” that’s when you just got silly, and silly is the best word I can find for it.
As an example, my right to yell “F**k all n****rs!� is protected by the Constitution, but does that mean it’s smart for me to roll down Crenshaw on a Friday night shouting that?
I take issue with this analogy, because in addition to being not smart, this conduct is also objectively wrong, whereas many of the unwise things that women do to put themselves in harm’s way aren’t objectively wrong — they’re just unwise. For example, going to a frat party without a “buddy” isn’t wrong, but it’s unwise. In the case of unwise female behavior, it’s more than just that your right to do that is protected by the Constitution; it’s that you also have a moral right, in addition to a legal right. That changes the culpability equation. Yes, the guys on Crenshaw who beat you to a bloody pulp for using the n-word are going to pay the penalty for their crime, but I’m sure as hell not going to have any sympathy for you, and I’m probably going to support them getting the minimum possible sentence. Whereas in the case of a rape where the woman foolishly put herself at risk, that risky behavior has no impact whatsoever on the level of punishment I would demand of the rapist, nor would it cause me to be unsympathic to her plight. That’s the very essence of the “nobody asks to be raped” mentality — even if you behaved unwisely and put yourself at risk, you still deserve the full measure of sympathy because nobody deserves to be raped. Period.
So, a better analogy would be, you’re walking through a really bad part of Crenshaw at 3am with a laptop around your shoulder, and you’re wearing a gold watch, and you’ve got $1,000 in your wallet. Have you done anything morally or ethically wrong? No, but you’re an idiot. When you get mugged and beaten up, do the muggers deserve a lesser punishment because of your idiocy? No (whereas I’d say the people who attack you for provoking them with racial slurs do deserve a lesser punishment than someone who attacked you without provocation… though of course they still should be punished). Do you still get my sympathy? Yeah… but at the same time, you were dumb.
Even that analogy is imperfect, because whereas I might laugh at your idiocy in that situation, I’d never laugh at someone who got raped after taking a similarly flagrant risk. But I guess that’s just because of the gravity of the crime involved. Laptops and money can be replaced. The emotional scars of sexual assault are permanent. Still, even if imperfect, my analogy is much better than yours, because yours involves actual culpability on the part of the victim, which flies in the face of the whole “not the victim’s fault” thing.
If you’re going to dress and act like a whore, don’t be surprised if men treat you like a whore, whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not.
You know Andrew, I think you’re beyond indifferent to what people think of your controversial statements — I think you really LIKE to rile them up. I suppose the real shocker is that it’s taken me five years knowing you to figure this out. Anyway, would it have killed you replace “whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not” with “even though it’s obviously illegal, immoral and completely wrong, and even though no one wants to be raped, and ‘no’ always means ‘no’”? Why even leave the ambiguity there? This reminds me a bit of Bill Maher’s statement about how terrorists “may be a lot of things, but they’re not cowards.” I really believe he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d specified what “lot of things” they are, and dropped the “may be.” For instance, “The terrorists are evil, vile, murderous bastards, but they’re not cowards.” That statement would be far more palatable to the average person than the one he actually made… even though the one he actually made leaves the door open for interpretation that that’s what he really meant. Same here. If you really mean what I think you mean, why not say it? It’s like, beyond merely eschewing the Brendan Loy style of choosing your words to make them as uncontroversial as possible, you’re actually choosing your words to make them as controversial as possible.
In this case, the woman was an escort–not a dancer, not a stripper–and unless you live in a cave, you should know by now that “escort� is the euphemism for legal prostitute.
Without getting into the question of whether this is true (apparently you have more experience in this area that I do :), what relevance does it really have? By all accounts, she showed up at the guys’ house to do a strip show for a bachelor party. It seems to me, that was the unwise, unsafe choice — going to a house full of horny, athletic guys without any sort of protection. What difference does it make whether or not she was, on the side, irrelevant to this particular case, a “legalized prostitute”? That seems irrelevant to me. I don’t object to your discussion of the “risk” issue, but it seems like you’re discussing the wrong “risk.” If she had been raped by a john, then your comments would be relevant. As it is, it seems like you’re expressing extraneous disapproval of her chosen profession and couching it in terms of a risk analysis where it really doesn’t fit.
Our culture needs to do two things: Punish rapists to the full extent of the law; and teach women to stop dressing and acting like whores.
Can I suggest a third thing: teaching men to stop expecting women to dress and act like whores? I suppose you’ll respond that the best way to achieve thing #3 is to do thing #2, but I don’t see any reason why one is obviously more doable than the other, and it seems to me they should go hand-in-hand. The Notre Dame “Men Against Violence” thing seems like an admirable start.
the problem isn’t going to disappear until women learn to start acting like ladies
The problem won’t disappear even then. Indeed, the implication that they will disappear make this perhaps the first truly offensive (as opposed to merely controversial) thing you’ve said. Yes, a lot of sexual assaults could be prevented if ladies acted more like ladies and gentlemen acted more like gentlemen, the former because it would reduce the risk and the latter because it would both reduce the risk (by changing the culture) and reduce the number of people taking advantage of women putting themselves risky situations. But to suggest that rape would “disappear” if women would be more careful is ludicrous.
can i suggest a third thing: teaching men to stop expecting women to dress and act like whores?
and that comment right there is something i would be very interested for Andrew to address… mostly because it seems to challenge the very core of his philosophy in a very insightful way.
While the probability of rape increases for a dancing escort, alone, half-naked, in a frat house, of angry drunken athletes, in North Carolina, (observant point) rape would not stop if women “learned� to start acting like ladies. That point would get you skinned by any man whose un-whore-like wife or daughter was the victim of rape. (Cause that happens too.)
I believe you’re accusing me of a logical leap I didn’t make. I never suggested rape will completely go away; as long as there are men and testosterone in this world, altar boys, prison inmates, women, and children will have something to worry about. I suppose I should have been more clear that the “problem” I was referring to wasn’t going to completely disappear (just like we’ll never get the crime of murder to completely disappear), but that it’d disappear in a sense that it’d return to levels that we consider as the best we could hope for, or damn near close.
I take issue with this analogy, because in addition to being not smart, this conduct is also objectively wrong, whereas many of the unwise things that women do to put themselves in harm’s way aren’t objectively wrong � they’re just unwise. For example, going to a frat party without a “buddy� isn’t wrong, but it’s unwise. In the case of unwise female behavior, it’s more than just that your right to do that is protected by the Constitution; it’s that you also have a moral right, in addition to a legal right. That changes the culpability equation. Yes, the guys on Crenshaw who beat you to a bloody pulp for using the n-word are going to pay the penalty for their crime, but I’m sure as hell not going to have any sympathy for you, and I’m probably going to support them getting the minimum possible sentence.
Okay, let me change the analogy slightly: What if I go cruising down Crenshaw and start yelling out, “What is wrong with all you gangbangers? You’re messed up in the head! Stop the violence, no more killing!” Reason tells me that a white boy going into a noted gang area and admonishing gang members for their bad behavior is not likely to leave unscathed.
Then again, I don’t necessarily agree with your premise that women behaving whorishly isn’t objectively wrong. You used the example of failing to bring a buddy to a frat party, but if that girl goes to the frat party and doesn’t drink, and doesn’t dress like a slut, her chances of being raped are much less. I’m not saying one should never drink or never dress sexy, I’m just saying, you fan the flames with such behavior, and you should be very careful about when to do it and when not to do it. Clearly many women are not simply careless in this regard, but actively seek to dress provocatively and get men riled up; they like the reaction, they like the attention. And then when the attention becomes too much attention and they get scared, that’s when problems start….
This reminds me a bit of Bill Maher’s statement about how terrorists “may be a lot of things, but they’re not cowards.�
I personally had no problem whatsoever with that statement. I already disliked Maher for other reasons, so I didn’t mind that he was getting flak, but I thought it was lame he lost his job over that comment. It was clear enough to me, and you must first be prejudiced and suspect bad intentions for you to come to a bad interpretation. What you’re basically doing here is excusing people’s prejudices, and saying the person speaking has an obligation to be extra careful with what he’s saying. Well, pragmatically maybe he should, but he’s under no moral obligation to do so. I certainly refuse to do so in certain instances; I’d rather let people’s prejudices become evident and then we all know where we stand.
If you really mean what I think you mean, why not say it? It’s like, beyond merely eschewing the Brendan Loy style of choosing your words to make them as uncontroversial as possible, you’re actually choosing your words to make them as controversial as possible.
I find it amusing that you’re frustrated with me here, because your wife is commonly guilty (if that is what it is) of the exact same thing. Maybe someday I’ll decide to be more diplomatic and less controversial, but I’m enjoying every minute of your struggle with Becky to do the exact same thing. Frankly, I love that she likes to be controversial. It’s one of the reasons that I got along with her instantly at the DT, before I even met you (from that perspective, I’ve been friends, or acquaintances or whatever, with her longer than I’ve been friends with you even). Her article on why women should masturbate was simultaneously brilliant and somewhat vulgar, and remains one of my favorite op-ed pieces ever published in the DT. Life needs some spice, and I can’t do it all on my own.
By all accounts, she showed up at the guys’ house to do a strip show for a bachelor party. It seems to me, that was the unwise, unsafe choice � going to a house full of horny, athletic guys without any sort of protection. What difference does it make whether or not she was, on the side, irrelevant to this particular case, a “legalized prostitute�? That seems irrelevant to me.
If all you want is just to have a stripper over to watch dance, you get out the phone book and call a stripper. 99 times out of 100 she’ll be there, with a bodyguard. If you want a girl who likely isn’t going to have a bodyguard to strip for you, and you want the possibility of, say, a gangbang to occur, then you call a prostitute–an “escort”. The fact that she was an escort is totally relevant in this case and probably has much to do with why the frat hired her and not a normal stripper. Because she was a prostitute, the guys figured they could get away with the sex–from their perspective perhaps, that’s what she was getting paid for anyway. So yes, the escort angle is crucial here.
Can I suggest a third thing: teaching men to stop expecting women to dress and act like whores?
Great idea, I completely agree.
I suppose you’ll respond that the best way to achieve thing #3 is to do thing #2, but I don’t see any reason why one is obviously more doable than the other, and it seems to me they should go hand-in-hand.
They do go hand-in-hand, but here’s my response: #3 can only be accomplished by guys, and the task involves asking them to change their nature. The most base desire of a man, after food, sleep, drink, peeing standing up, and taking a nice long relaxing dump, is seeing a naked girl and getting a hard-on. Asking a man to put his mind over his flesh is nice and all, but short of a culture or religion that reinforces the behavior, it’s very, very difficult for a guy to honestly say, “No, I don’t want that hot blonde with big tits to wear a short skirt and show her thong when she leans over”; “No, I don’t want that girl to get naked at the party and dance on the table”. Throw in a few drinks, and that task becomes not just difficult but probably impossible.
The only thing women can do to change men here is to instill good values in their sons, keep their husbands in line, and hope for the best. They have far more control over themselves and how they dress than they ever will over any man, including their own sons. So if women want to reduce rape, the most effective thing they can do is look to themselves and make sure they’re not engaging in risky behavior, and then working to change how other women behave as well.
The Notre Dame “Men Against Violence� thing seems like an admirable start.
How about Promise Keepers? I was a huge fan of that movement. It’s too bad NOW and NARAL went around teaching women to hate Promise Keepers instead of embracing them.
But to suggest that rape would “disappear� if women would be more careful is ludicrous.
As I said above, that is one comment where I should have been more careful with my words. I didn’t mean to suggest that at all. As I said above, rape will never go away; it’ll be with us as long as we have men and testosterone.
You know Andrew, I think you’re beyond indifferent to what people think of your controversial statements � I think you really LIKE to rile them up. I suppose the real shocker is that it’s taken me five years knowing you to figure this out.
I responded to this, but as I scrolled up, I see my comment never posted. Basically, I like to be blunt sometimes. I don’t enjoy getting people mad at me per se, but I do like to use trigger words when possible to challenge the way people think. When one reacts because of a trigger word and automatically assumes a meaning on the part of the speaker, that is an example of prejudice and not thinking. I like to force that person to stop and filter his/her reaction through his/her thinking cap first, so that they can put aside the emotion and say, “Whoah, that was totally inflammatory-sounding, but he’s right! I need to rethink why I react the way I do to this. I need to step back and teach myself not to be so judgmental, and to actually consider what the person is saying before I respond.” Granted, I’m not very successful in reprogramming people out of their emotions and prejudices, but I at least like to try.
Anyway, would it have killed you replace “whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not� with “even though it’s obviously illegal, immoral and completely wrong, and even though no one wants to be raped, and ‘no’ always means ‘no’�? Why even leave the ambiguity there?
I didn’t see any ambiguity there. I don’t feel the need to apologize for other people’s jumping to conclusions–not on this blog in this capacity, anyway. Besides, I don’t necessarily agree 100% with your caveats. I don’t need to state that no one wants to be raped, or that rape is illegal, immoral, and always wrong. An open-minded person should assume that I believe that, not assume that I don’t. As for “No means No”, you’re opening a can of worms there. How many times have you had sex and first stopped to verbally ask, “Yes or no?” Granted your experience is limited to one partner, but let me assure you that even in the world of philanderers and fornicators, that question is rarely asked, and the expected behavior is usually implicit.
As it is, it’s technically not true that no woman want to be raped; for some bizarre reason, many women have that fantasy. I bet they wouldn’t like it if it really happened to them, but they still have that fantasy. We really don’t need to advance that discussion to make our point though, so why bring it up?
This reminds me a bit of Bill Maher’s statement about how terrorists “may be a lot of things, but they’re not cowards.� I really believe he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d specified what “lot of things� they are, and dropped the “may be.� For instance, “The terrorists are evil, vile, murderous bastards, but they’re not cowards.� That statement would be far more palatable to the average person than the one he actually made… even though the one he actually made leaves the door open for interpretation that that’s what he really meant.
I disagree. I don’t like Maher much, but he was plenty clear the first time. Why should he have to bend over backwards to appease his haters? I knew what he probably meant, and I had no reason to suspect he was pro-terrorist. Neither should’ve anyone else. For his job’s sake, when you work for a company like ABC/Disney, you might want to be less controversial, but other than cross his company’s sensitivity, he did nothing wrong IMO.
Same here. If you really mean what I think you mean, why not say it? It’s like, beyond merely eschewing the Brendan Loy style of choosing your words to make them as uncontroversial as possible, you’re actually choosing your words to make them as controversial as possible.
I made my point already above. Sometimes controversy is a good thing. Ask Becky, maybe she can shed some light on why we like to be controversial sometimes. Not every one of us is born with the journalist mentality of “Must sound fair and impartial to all people!”
I’m approaching that point where I tire of a debate, back off and let others take over (sometimes only to jump into the fray later on)… and besides which, I’m actually doing some of my law reading at the moment, I’m just taking a quick break because FedCourts was putting me to sleep so I needed a dose of bloggy goodness to wake me up. :)
The most base desire of a man, after food, sleep, drink, peeing standing up, and taking a nice long relaxing dump, is seeing a naked girl and getting a hard-on.
LOL!
I find it amusing that you’re frustrated with me here, because your wife is commonly guilty (if that is what it is) of the exact same thing.
LOL again… that is most definitely true.
Maybe someday I’ll decide to be more diplomatic and less controversial, but I’m enjoying every minute of your struggle with Becky to do the exact same thing. Frankly, I love that she likes to be controversial.
So do I… except when I don’t. :) Seriously, about 90% of the time, Becky’s penchant for controversy and contrarianism is one of the (many) things that I love about her. And then there is at that other 10%, where she, in my mind, crosses the line, and I wish she would tone it down a bit. For example… when she had the idea of driving around South Bend with the windows down on October 14, turning the bass up and repeatedly blasting “Conquest,” “Tribute to Troy” and “Fight On,” on the car stereo, I thought it was brilliant. When she insisted that we do the same thing while driving down Notre Dame Avenue and going around the “circle” in front of the law school, the wuss in me objected, but for the most part, I was still OK with the idea. However, when she stopped the car in front of a male dorm near the circle, and seemed content to just sit there for a while, blasting the music to a large group of pissed-off looking male Domers, I was like, holy crap, love the music but KEEP DRIVING! :)
Likewise, although going out on controversial limbs isn’t nearly as cute and/or attractive when you do it as when Becky does it :), I don’t generally have a problem with it. But there are exceptions, and I guess this is one of those cases where you’re tiptoeing close to my “line.”
But you’re under no obligation, obviously, to pander to my sensibilities. Nor is Becky, as I have learned time and time again, and will continue to learn, no doubt… hehe. :)
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March 28th, 2006 at 3:57:46 pm
Never underestimate a bunch of rich kids and some roofies.
March 28th, 2006 at 4:13:50 pm
Wouldn’t jail time for the commission of a crime be properly labeled as reactive, not proactive?
March 28th, 2006 at 7:45:03 pm
Not that this in any way justifies the crime, but the story notes that the girl was an “escort”–in other words, a legalized female prostitute. This goes back to the whole “She was asking for it” argument, which I don’t intend whatsoever to defend. But the risk of sexual assault, rape, or some other form of sexual coercion surely are much greater when you engage in risky behavior, especially sans bodyguard. When you dance around fire, don’t be surprised if you trip and get burned.
March 28th, 2006 at 8:04:13 pm
There is a joke here somewhere, but it would be tasteless given the circumstances.
March 29th, 2006 at 9:24:07 am
Andrew
I understand your point, but at the same time it is pretty ridiculous. No means NO. I also dont believe that being an escort is legalizing anything. The woman has two children and has a full load at school, she is trying to make it. Did you know that almost 80 percent of single mothers go on assistance?
March 29th, 2006 at 9:29:49 am
My point is that I am a mother of two, and wow, the lengths I would go to to feed and clothe my kids are endless. I know you werent in anyway condoning but I just dont feel that should even be issue in this. Lets face it we all know better.
March 29th, 2006 at 10:24:02 am
jesus andrew, you just walked the tightrope over hell.
March 29th, 2006 at 11:19:48 am
Don’t worry sped-bump, I’m used to it.
IMO, all the guilty Dukies should get serious jailtime so they also can have the experience of being on the receiving end of coerced sodomy.
And also the woman who got raped is an idiot. I need to put food on the table therefore I’ll become a whore? Do I really need to take a line out of David’s playbook here and say that the ends don’t justify the means? In some cases I think they do, but this isn’t one of them. Whatever happened to modesty and dignity? Is it really necessary to compromise your values so your kids can have brand new iPods like the rest of the kids in school?
March 29th, 2006 at 12:44:10 pm
Andrew, the woman is an idiot? Why because she wasn’t aware that athletes have a permission slip to rape as they see fit? She was a dancer,an escort- that doesn’t mean she was a whore- perhaps you should learn that not all in those professions are.
And before you say anything more- take this in for a moment- even if she was standing half naked in the middle of NYC with a sign that said “will blow for 5 bucks”- as soon as the words no come out of her mouth, any continued sexual advances are wrong, and illegal.
Men who walk around putting any blame on the victim- like you- are a part of the problem. No wonder so many young men are becoming rapist- look at the type of people raising them.
A woman has the right to say no, and believe it or not despite how much the “no” might insult some asshat’s manhood- nothing, NOTHING! not what she is wearing, what she does for a living, NOTHING! gives three men the right to rape, sodomize, and beat a woman.
March 29th, 2006 at 1:34:22 pm
Lilo, if you actually read what Andrew said instead of assuming that he is your archetypal male villain, you’ll see that he isn’t “putting any blame on the victim” for getting raped, let alone suggesting that anyone has “a permission slip to rape.” Instead, he’s making the rather obvious point that risky behavior is, well, risky — this is why college women adopt the “buddy system” at parties, isn’t it? not because they’d be “asking for it” otherwise, but rather, because they’re smart enough to know that life is risky, some men are assholes and/or sexual predators, and therefore precautionary measures are a good idea — and also criticizing other choices that this particular woman made, with regard to becoming, in Andrew’s words, “an ‘escort’–in other words, a legalized female prostitute.” That, obviously, is what he meant by calling her an “idiot”; a fair reading clearly reveals that. He made clear, however, that this does not “in any way justif[y] the crime” and added, “This goes back to the whole ‘She was asking for it’ argument, which I don’t intend whatsoever to defend.” Oh yeah, and he said that the rapists “should get serious jailtime,” which is not exactly what you’d expect to hear from someone who believes that a woman doesn’t have the right to say “no” because doing so “might insult some asshat’s manhood.” (Seriously, huh? Where are you getting that last part from? Certainly not from anything Andrew said.) If Andrew believed she “didn’t have the right to say no,” he wouldn’t be advocating “serious jailtime” for the rapists!
Look, I wouldn’t have said the things Andrew said; he was asking for trouble by even “going there,” despite the disclaimers and the fact that he obviously wasn’t blaming the victim per se. But as per usual, the ridiculous hyperbolic response to Andrew’s un-PC but not-nearly-as-bad-as-you-are-making-it-out-to-be comments force me to defend him when I’d really rather not. Have you no sense of nuance, no ability to tell the difference between a merely controversial statement and a thoroughly condemnible one?
Oh, and in case I need to establish my bona fides… I know whole bunch of women who have been sexually assaulted. You won’t find a man anywhere more disgusted by rapists and sexual predators, nor more committed to the idea that those who commit sexual assault are solely morally responsible for their actions and must pay the consequences. But despite all of the above, I am also a rational, logical person, able to distinguish between people who are truly “part of the problem” and those, like Andrew, who merely have a penchant for controversy.
March 29th, 2006 at 1:41:55 pm
P.S. Lilo, you did make one legitimate rebuttal to Andrew’s comments, namely, “She was a dancer,an escort- that doesn’t mean she was a whore- perhaps you should learn that not all in those professions are.” Fair enough. But the rest of your response rebuts points that Andrew didn’t make, nor did he imply them (if you explicitly disclaim a viewpoint, it’s hard to simultaneously imply it). Instead, you are unjustifiably inferring them, attributing them to Andrew, and condemning him for them.
You can criticize him for making the points he made at all, e.g., “I understand you aren’t blaming the victim, but why are you even saying these things in the first place? Couldn’t they easily lend credibility to someone else’s blame-the-victim argument?” Those would be potentially legitimate criticisms. But to flat-out accuse of Andrew of believing that these players had a “permission slip to rape,” when he explicitly said otherwise, is just stupid and offensive.
March 29th, 2006 at 2:32:57 pm
I won’t take a backseat to Brendan or anyone else in my disgust for rape, but I also am not going to ignore the fact that many people willingly put themselves into dangerous situations. As an example, my right to yell “F**k all n****rs!” is protected by the Constitution, but does that mean it’s smart for me to roll down Crenshaw on a Friday night shouting that? In some sense, you might say I deserved whatever ends up happening to me, though you also likely wouldn’t oppose my attackers from being properly punished, either. I’d probably even make the Darwin Awards and you’d all have a good laugh at my removal from the gene pool.
But how is that different than this rape situation? If you’re going to dress and act like a piece of red meat in front of a den of hungry lions, should you be surprised when you’re attacked? If you’re going to dress and act like a whore, don’t be surprised if men treat you like a whore, whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not. In this case, the woman was an escort–not a dancer, not a stripper–and unless you live in a cave, you should know by now that “escort” is the euphemism for legal prostitute. Open up the LA Weekly ads or go do some googling, I guarantee you the results are NSFW.
Our culture needs to do two things: Punish rapists to the full extent of the law; and teach women to stop dressing and acting like whores. In fact, I’d argue that the latter is far more conducive to reducing instances of sexual assault than the former, since most men are well aware of the penalties for sexual assault, they just feel like they can still get away with it–and oftentimes they can because the evidence and question of consent is ambiguous.
I don’t mind being beaten up on this issue, because despite how un-PC this is, the point is so obviously commonsensical that, as Brendan notes, sororities and similar groups now teach women to be smarter, have a buddy, and otherwise avoid situations that could be dangerous. And in a “Girls Gone Wild” era, where multitudes of young women behave like whores, it only becomes that much more dangerous and uncomfortable for the rest of women who do behave like ladies, but are nevertheless pressured or coerced into public of private acts they’re ashamed of.
Bottom line: We can throw half the male population in prison for rape, but the problem isn’t going to disappear until women learn to start acting like ladies.
March 29th, 2006 at 2:52:11 pm
In some sense, you might say I deserved whatever ends up happening to me
balance, balance, slip… ‘oh god he’s gonna fall off the tightrope… no, no, he clarrified his statement, balance, balance…
March 29th, 2006 at 3:08:52 pm
“Bottom line: We can throw half the male population in prison for rape, but the problem isn’t going to disappear until women learn to start acting like ladies.
I disagree though, rape is carnal and has existed prior to the current whore-dom trend. (Way before being a whore was cool.) Don’t go getting the cart before the horse. These are the times you slip over the line of being observant and instead aim to provoke and disturb. I’ve followed you so far and agreed, like brendan I read your entire message and understood it. While the probability of rape increases for a dancing escort, alone, half-naked, in a frat house, of angry drunken athletes, in North Carolina, (observant point) rape would not stop if women “learned” to start acting like ladies. That point would get you skinned by any man whose un-whore-like wife or daughter was the victim of rape. (Cause that happens too.) Or how about men who rape men, like priests? When will alterboys stop being such sluts? No no no, I was with you till “the bottom line,” that’s when you just got silly, and silly is the best word I can find for it.
March 29th, 2006 at 3:26:46 pm
As an example, my right to yell “F**k all n****rs!� is protected by the Constitution, but does that mean it’s smart for me to roll down Crenshaw on a Friday night shouting that?
I take issue with this analogy, because in addition to being not smart, this conduct is also objectively wrong, whereas many of the unwise things that women do to put themselves in harm’s way aren’t objectively wrong — they’re just unwise. For example, going to a frat party without a “buddy” isn’t wrong, but it’s unwise. In the case of unwise female behavior, it’s more than just that your right to do that is protected by the Constitution; it’s that you also have a moral right, in addition to a legal right. That changes the culpability equation. Yes, the guys on Crenshaw who beat you to a bloody pulp for using the n-word are going to pay the penalty for their crime, but I’m sure as hell not going to have any sympathy for you, and I’m probably going to support them getting the minimum possible sentence. Whereas in the case of a rape where the woman foolishly put herself at risk, that risky behavior has no impact whatsoever on the level of punishment I would demand of the rapist, nor would it cause me to be unsympathic to her plight. That’s the very essence of the “nobody asks to be raped” mentality — even if you behaved unwisely and put yourself at risk, you still deserve the full measure of sympathy because nobody deserves to be raped. Period.
So, a better analogy would be, you’re walking through a really bad part of Crenshaw at 3am with a laptop around your shoulder, and you’re wearing a gold watch, and you’ve got $1,000 in your wallet. Have you done anything morally or ethically wrong? No, but you’re an idiot. When you get mugged and beaten up, do the muggers deserve a lesser punishment because of your idiocy? No (whereas I’d say the people who attack you for provoking them with racial slurs do deserve a lesser punishment than someone who attacked you without provocation… though of course they still should be punished). Do you still get my sympathy? Yeah… but at the same time, you were dumb.
Even that analogy is imperfect, because whereas I might laugh at your idiocy in that situation, I’d never laugh at someone who got raped after taking a similarly flagrant risk. But I guess that’s just because of the gravity of the crime involved. Laptops and money can be replaced. The emotional scars of sexual assault are permanent. Still, even if imperfect, my analogy is much better than yours, because yours involves actual culpability on the part of the victim, which flies in the face of the whole “not the victim’s fault” thing.
If you’re going to dress and act like a whore, don’t be surprised if men treat you like a whore, whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not.
You know Andrew, I think you’re beyond indifferent to what people think of your controversial statements — I think you really LIKE to rile them up. I suppose the real shocker is that it’s taken me five years knowing you to figure this out. Anyway, would it have killed you replace “whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not” with “even though it’s obviously illegal, immoral and completely wrong, and even though no one wants to be raped, and ‘no’ always means ‘no’”? Why even leave the ambiguity there? This reminds me a bit of Bill Maher’s statement about how terrorists “may be a lot of things, but they’re not cowards.” I really believe he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d specified what “lot of things” they are, and dropped the “may be.” For instance, “The terrorists are evil, vile, murderous bastards, but they’re not cowards.” That statement would be far more palatable to the average person than the one he actually made… even though the one he actually made leaves the door open for interpretation that that’s what he really meant. Same here. If you really mean what I think you mean, why not say it? It’s like, beyond merely eschewing the Brendan Loy style of choosing your words to make them as uncontroversial as possible, you’re actually choosing your words to make them as controversial as possible.
In this case, the woman was an escort–not a dancer, not a stripper–and unless you live in a cave, you should know by now that “escort� is the euphemism for legal prostitute.
Without getting into the question of whether this is true (apparently you have more experience in this area that I do :), what relevance does it really have? By all accounts, she showed up at the guys’ house to do a strip show for a bachelor party. It seems to me, that was the unwise, unsafe choice — going to a house full of horny, athletic guys without any sort of protection. What difference does it make whether or not she was, on the side, irrelevant to this particular case, a “legalized prostitute”? That seems irrelevant to me. I don’t object to your discussion of the “risk” issue, but it seems like you’re discussing the wrong “risk.” If she had been raped by a john, then your comments would be relevant. As it is, it seems like you’re expressing extraneous disapproval of her chosen profession and couching it in terms of a risk analysis where it really doesn’t fit.
Our culture needs to do two things: Punish rapists to the full extent of the law; and teach women to stop dressing and acting like whores.
Can I suggest a third thing: teaching men to stop expecting women to dress and act like whores? I suppose you’ll respond that the best way to achieve thing #3 is to do thing #2, but I don’t see any reason why one is obviously more doable than the other, and it seems to me they should go hand-in-hand. The Notre Dame “Men Against Violence” thing seems like an admirable start.
the problem isn’t going to disappear until women learn to start acting like ladies
The problem won’t disappear even then. Indeed, the implication that they will disappear make this perhaps the first truly offensive (as opposed to merely controversial) thing you’ve said. Yes, a lot of sexual assaults could be prevented if ladies acted more like ladies and gentlemen acted more like gentlemen, the former because it would reduce the risk and the latter because it would both reduce the risk (by changing the culture) and reduce the number of people taking advantage of women putting themselves risky situations. But to suggest that rape would “disappear” if women would be more careful is ludicrous.
March 29th, 2006 at 3:30:07 pm
P.S. Amen to sped-bump’s most recent comment.
March 29th, 2006 at 3:38:18 pm
P.S. Amen to Brendan Loy’s most recent comment about my most recent comment.
March 29th, 2006 at 3:45:19 pm
can i suggest a third thing: teaching men to stop expecting women to dress and act like whores?
and that comment right there is something i would be very interested for Andrew to address… mostly because it seems to challenge the very core of his philosophy in a very insightful way.
March 29th, 2006 at 8:54:04 pm
Cool responses so far, thanks.
While the probability of rape increases for a dancing escort, alone, half-naked, in a frat house, of angry drunken athletes, in North Carolina, (observant point) rape would not stop if women “learned� to start acting like ladies. That point would get you skinned by any man whose un-whore-like wife or daughter was the victim of rape. (Cause that happens too.)
I believe you’re accusing me of a logical leap I didn’t make. I never suggested rape will completely go away; as long as there are men and testosterone in this world, altar boys, prison inmates, women, and children will have something to worry about. I suppose I should have been more clear that the “problem” I was referring to wasn’t going to completely disappear (just like we’ll never get the crime of murder to completely disappear), but that it’d disappear in a sense that it’d return to levels that we consider as the best we could hope for, or damn near close.
I take issue with this analogy, because in addition to being not smart, this conduct is also objectively wrong, whereas many of the unwise things that women do to put themselves in harm’s way aren’t objectively wrong � they’re just unwise. For example, going to a frat party without a “buddy� isn’t wrong, but it’s unwise. In the case of unwise female behavior, it’s more than just that your right to do that is protected by the Constitution; it’s that you also have a moral right, in addition to a legal right. That changes the culpability equation. Yes, the guys on Crenshaw who beat you to a bloody pulp for using the n-word are going to pay the penalty for their crime, but I’m sure as hell not going to have any sympathy for you, and I’m probably going to support them getting the minimum possible sentence.
Okay, let me change the analogy slightly: What if I go cruising down Crenshaw and start yelling out, “What is wrong with all you gangbangers? You’re messed up in the head! Stop the violence, no more killing!” Reason tells me that a white boy going into a noted gang area and admonishing gang members for their bad behavior is not likely to leave unscathed.
Then again, I don’t necessarily agree with your premise that women behaving whorishly isn’t objectively wrong. You used the example of failing to bring a buddy to a frat party, but if that girl goes to the frat party and doesn’t drink, and doesn’t dress like a slut, her chances of being raped are much less. I’m not saying one should never drink or never dress sexy, I’m just saying, you fan the flames with such behavior, and you should be very careful about when to do it and when not to do it. Clearly many women are not simply careless in this regard, but actively seek to dress provocatively and get men riled up; they like the reaction, they like the attention. And then when the attention becomes too much attention and they get scared, that’s when problems start….
March 29th, 2006 at 9:22:21 pm
This reminds me a bit of Bill Maher’s statement about how terrorists “may be a lot of things, but they’re not cowards.�
I personally had no problem whatsoever with that statement. I already disliked Maher for other reasons, so I didn’t mind that he was getting flak, but I thought it was lame he lost his job over that comment. It was clear enough to me, and you must first be prejudiced and suspect bad intentions for you to come to a bad interpretation. What you’re basically doing here is excusing people’s prejudices, and saying the person speaking has an obligation to be extra careful with what he’s saying. Well, pragmatically maybe he should, but he’s under no moral obligation to do so. I certainly refuse to do so in certain instances; I’d rather let people’s prejudices become evident and then we all know where we stand.
If you really mean what I think you mean, why not say it? It’s like, beyond merely eschewing the Brendan Loy style of choosing your words to make them as uncontroversial as possible, you’re actually choosing your words to make them as controversial as possible.
I find it amusing that you’re frustrated with me here, because your wife is commonly guilty (if that is what it is) of the exact same thing. Maybe someday I’ll decide to be more diplomatic and less controversial, but I’m enjoying every minute of your struggle with Becky to do the exact same thing. Frankly, I love that she likes to be controversial. It’s one of the reasons that I got along with her instantly at the DT, before I even met you (from that perspective, I’ve been friends, or acquaintances or whatever, with her longer than I’ve been friends with you even). Her article on why women should masturbate was simultaneously brilliant and somewhat vulgar, and remains one of my favorite op-ed pieces ever published in the DT. Life needs some spice, and I can’t do it all on my own.
March 29th, 2006 at 9:26:20 pm
By all accounts, she showed up at the guys’ house to do a strip show for a bachelor party. It seems to me, that was the unwise, unsafe choice � going to a house full of horny, athletic guys without any sort of protection. What difference does it make whether or not she was, on the side, irrelevant to this particular case, a “legalized prostitute�? That seems irrelevant to me.
If all you want is just to have a stripper over to watch dance, you get out the phone book and call a stripper. 99 times out of 100 she’ll be there, with a bodyguard. If you want a girl who likely isn’t going to have a bodyguard to strip for you, and you want the possibility of, say, a gangbang to occur, then you call a prostitute–an “escort”. The fact that she was an escort is totally relevant in this case and probably has much to do with why the frat hired her and not a normal stripper. Because she was a prostitute, the guys figured they could get away with the sex–from their perspective perhaps, that’s what she was getting paid for anyway. So yes, the escort angle is crucial here.
March 29th, 2006 at 9:33:49 pm
Can I suggest a third thing: teaching men to stop expecting women to dress and act like whores?
Great idea, I completely agree.
I suppose you’ll respond that the best way to achieve thing #3 is to do thing #2, but I don’t see any reason why one is obviously more doable than the other, and it seems to me they should go hand-in-hand.
They do go hand-in-hand, but here’s my response: #3 can only be accomplished by guys, and the task involves asking them to change their nature. The most base desire of a man, after food, sleep, drink, peeing standing up, and taking a nice long relaxing dump, is seeing a naked girl and getting a hard-on. Asking a man to put his mind over his flesh is nice and all, but short of a culture or religion that reinforces the behavior, it’s very, very difficult for a guy to honestly say, “No, I don’t want that hot blonde with big tits to wear a short skirt and show her thong when she leans over”; “No, I don’t want that girl to get naked at the party and dance on the table”. Throw in a few drinks, and that task becomes not just difficult but probably impossible.
The only thing women can do to change men here is to instill good values in their sons, keep their husbands in line, and hope for the best. They have far more control over themselves and how they dress than they ever will over any man, including their own sons. So if women want to reduce rape, the most effective thing they can do is look to themselves and make sure they’re not engaging in risky behavior, and then working to change how other women behave as well.
The Notre Dame “Men Against Violence� thing seems like an admirable start.
How about Promise Keepers? I was a huge fan of that movement. It’s too bad NOW and NARAL went around teaching women to hate Promise Keepers instead of embracing them.
March 29th, 2006 at 9:35:37 pm
But to suggest that rape would “disappear� if women would be more careful is ludicrous.
As I said above, that is one comment where I should have been more careful with my words. I didn’t mean to suggest that at all. As I said above, rape will never go away; it’ll be with us as long as we have men and testosterone.
March 29th, 2006 at 9:39:57 pm
You know Andrew, I think you’re beyond indifferent to what people think of your controversial statements � I think you really LIKE to rile them up. I suppose the real shocker is that it’s taken me five years knowing you to figure this out.
I responded to this, but as I scrolled up, I see my comment never posted. Basically, I like to be blunt sometimes. I don’t enjoy getting people mad at me per se, but I do like to use trigger words when possible to challenge the way people think. When one reacts because of a trigger word and automatically assumes a meaning on the part of the speaker, that is an example of prejudice and not thinking. I like to force that person to stop and filter his/her reaction through his/her thinking cap first, so that they can put aside the emotion and say, “Whoah, that was totally inflammatory-sounding, but he’s right! I need to rethink why I react the way I do to this. I need to step back and teach myself not to be so judgmental, and to actually consider what the person is saying before I respond.” Granted, I’m not very successful in reprogramming people out of their emotions and prejudices, but I at least like to try.
March 29th, 2006 at 9:45:52 pm
Anyway, would it have killed you replace “whether it’s legal or not and whether you want to be treated like one or not� with “even though it’s obviously illegal, immoral and completely wrong, and even though no one wants to be raped, and ‘no’ always means ‘no’�? Why even leave the ambiguity there?
I didn’t see any ambiguity there. I don’t feel the need to apologize for other people’s jumping to conclusions–not on this blog in this capacity, anyway. Besides, I don’t necessarily agree 100% with your caveats. I don’t need to state that no one wants to be raped, or that rape is illegal, immoral, and always wrong. An open-minded person should assume that I believe that, not assume that I don’t. As for “No means No”, you’re opening a can of worms there. How many times have you had sex and first stopped to verbally ask, “Yes or no?” Granted your experience is limited to one partner, but let me assure you that even in the world of philanderers and fornicators, that question is rarely asked, and the expected behavior is usually implicit.
As it is, it’s technically not true that no woman want to be raped; for some bizarre reason, many women have that fantasy. I bet they wouldn’t like it if it really happened to them, but they still have that fantasy. We really don’t need to advance that discussion to make our point though, so why bring it up?
March 29th, 2006 at 9:49:35 pm
This reminds me a bit of Bill Maher’s statement about how terrorists “may be a lot of things, but they’re not cowards.� I really believe he could have saved himself a lot of trouble if he’d specified what “lot of things� they are, and dropped the “may be.� For instance, “The terrorists are evil, vile, murderous bastards, but they’re not cowards.� That statement would be far more palatable to the average person than the one he actually made… even though the one he actually made leaves the door open for interpretation that that’s what he really meant.
I disagree. I don’t like Maher much, but he was plenty clear the first time. Why should he have to bend over backwards to appease his haters? I knew what he probably meant, and I had no reason to suspect he was pro-terrorist. Neither should’ve anyone else. For his job’s sake, when you work for a company like ABC/Disney, you might want to be less controversial, but other than cross his company’s sensitivity, he did nothing wrong IMO.
Same here. If you really mean what I think you mean, why not say it? It’s like, beyond merely eschewing the Brendan Loy style of choosing your words to make them as uncontroversial as possible, you’re actually choosing your words to make them as controversial as possible.
I made my point already above. Sometimes controversy is a good thing. Ask Becky, maybe she can shed some light on why we like to be controversial sometimes. Not every one of us is born with the journalist mentality of “Must sound fair and impartial to all people!”
March 29th, 2006 at 10:08:59 pm
I’m approaching that point where I tire of a debate, back off and let others take over (sometimes only to jump into the fray later on)… and besides which, I’m actually doing some of my law reading at the moment, I’m just taking a quick break because FedCourts was putting me to sleep so I needed a dose of bloggy goodness to wake me up. :)
The most base desire of a man, after food, sleep, drink, peeing standing up, and taking a nice long relaxing dump, is seeing a naked girl and getting a hard-on.
LOL!
I find it amusing that you’re frustrated with me here, because your wife is commonly guilty (if that is what it is) of the exact same thing.
LOL again… that is most definitely true.
Maybe someday I’ll decide to be more diplomatic and less controversial, but I’m enjoying every minute of your struggle with Becky to do the exact same thing. Frankly, I love that she likes to be controversial.
So do I… except when I don’t. :) Seriously, about 90% of the time, Becky’s penchant for controversy and contrarianism is one of the (many) things that I love about her. And then there is at that other 10%, where she, in my mind, crosses the line, and I wish she would tone it down a bit. For example… when she had the idea of driving around South Bend with the windows down on October 14, turning the bass up and repeatedly blasting “Conquest,” “Tribute to Troy” and “Fight On,” on the car stereo, I thought it was brilliant. When she insisted that we do the same thing while driving down Notre Dame Avenue and going around the “circle” in front of the law school, the wuss in me objected, but for the most part, I was still OK with the idea. However, when she stopped the car in front of a male dorm near the circle, and seemed content to just sit there for a while, blasting the music to a large group of pissed-off looking male Domers, I was like, holy crap, love the music but KEEP DRIVING! :)
Likewise, although going out on controversial limbs isn’t nearly as cute and/or attractive when you do it as when Becky does it :), I don’t generally have a problem with it. But there are exceptions, and I guess this is one of those cases where you’re tiptoeing close to my “line.”
But you’re under no obligation, obviously, to pander to my sensibilities. Nor is Becky, as I have learned time and time again, and will continue to learn, no doubt… hehe. :)