Stanford Rape

I just heard that Brock Turner received a six-month sentence for raping a 23-year-old woman on the campus of Stanford University. The woman was passed out behind a dumpster. Two young men who were riding by on their bicycles saw a man on top of the woman and stopped to help. The man turned out to be Brock Turner. He could have received fourteen years. The prosecutor asked for six. The judge gave him six months and three years probation. I would have buried him under the jail. To me, the only sexual offense worse than rape is child molestation. I simply don't understand the men in either situation. We'll leave child molesting for another blog and just talk about rape. I don't know Brock Turner, but after listening to his father talking about the verdict, I can only imagine how privileged his life must have been. I think it’s fair to assume that he was raised like a lot of privileged young men are raised, and that he was always told that the world was his oyster. These people feel they’re not subject to the normal rules of behavior that the rest of us learned, and many of them seem to have a sense of entitlement in all areas of their lives. I will confess right here and now that I've been drunk before. I've been in the company of women when I've been drunk. I've been in the company of drunken women. And yet, somehow, I've never raped anyone. Why is that? My mother imbued me with a strong moral code. She taught me to respect women, to stand up when one enters the room, to hold doors and chairs for them, and to answer, “Yes, ma'am; no, ma'am” when I was spoken to. She taught me the same thing about everyone, but I mention women specifically because my mother was a single mom with three kids, and I saw her strength of character every day. All my life, I have marveled at the inner strength of the women I've known.

Despite all that, women clearly are the weaker sex from a physical standpoint. There aren't very many women who can stand up to a physically imposing man. But that's just the point—they shouldn't have to. I'm told that rape is not about sex, it's about power. Bullcrap. It's about both. If you are unable to control your impulses to dominate women with either physical power or sex, then you shouldn't be allowed out of your cell. There is simply no justification for rape. None at all. It may be hard to believe, but I've actually had women say no to me. I know, right? Hard to believe. When this happens, I back off immediately because it's the only thing a real man can do. I'm still friends today with two of those women, and though I sometimes wonder what it might have been like, they were right to turn me down and I respected their decisions. I turned out a better man for those decisions.

I'm going to paraphrase a British explanation of consent that I heard a while back on the Internet (unfortunately I can't find it, so I can't attribute it): If you offer a woman a cup of tea and she says, “Oh, I'd love a cup of tea,” it is okay to bring her a cup of tea. If she says, “Oh, I'm not sure,” you can still make her a cup of tea, but you can't make her drink it. It will be up to her to decide if she wants it or not. If she says, “No thank you, I don't want a cup of tea,” do not make her a cup of tea! She doesn't want it. If she's unconscious, you can't ask her anything since she cannot hear you. If she says, “I'd love a cup of tea,” and you make a cup of tea and bring it to her, and sometime between her asking for the tea and you bringing it to her she becomes unconscious, you cannot make her drink the tea. She's unconscious for crying out loud. Pretty well sums it up for me. So listen up, guys. Here's my final word on the subject: If you've read my blog on gun control, you know it's something I believe in. However, if you put an unwanted hand on my fiancée or either of my daughters, then I'm warning you right now that I will not be able to control my gun.