A Drexel University student who goes by the name Lonnie Snyder -- whom I know nothing about aside from what's written in his op-ed piece -- has seen fit to manufacture a clearinghouse of irrationalities to support his blithe, cavalier rejection of "Nicole's" recantation in the much publicized Philippines rape case where Lance Corporal Daniel Smith, a man not much older than I suspect Mr. Lonnie Snyder is, has been sentenced to serve out decades in prison for a putative rape his accuser now says never occurred.
As we've previously reported here, Nicole's recantation was set forth in a very rational, thoughtful affidavit that manifests what can only be called a guilty conscience. A guilty conscience is not something that the extremist wing of the feminist community can understand, given that it is premised on the existence of right and wrong, a truth separate and apart from their own ideological, narcissistic whims and desires. Nicole's affidavit says she doesn't think it is fair that a young man is rotting away in prison based on a sexual encounter that was confusing and that, she fears, sent him mixed signals. Nicole isn't sure if it was rape, and in a just and rational world, that should be enough to free the young man.
How does Mr. Lonnie Snyder react to this affidavit? He rejects it out of hand by invoking the most inane speculation, the wildest surmise and the most asinine conjecture.
Nicole had "courage" to initially report the rape and to put herself through the court proceeding, Mr. Lonnie Snyder declares. But then, deus ex machina, Mr. Lonnie Snyder plops a conclusion on the page that might just as well have fallen from outer space. Mr. Lonnie Snyder leaps, bounds and soars to the conclusion that Nicole's recantation can only be accounted for by outside pressures, interference or threats by third parties.
Of course, this childish speculation is factually incorrect as shown by a cavalcade of innumerable rape claim recantations cited on this website; recantations where, objectively, the evidence simply did not support the claim in the first place.
I would be curious as to what outside pressures Mr. Lonnie Snyder thinks "got to" Nicole. The U.S. military? The Philippines government? UFOs? Bigfoot? Mercifully, Mr. Lonnie Snyder doesn't bother to tell us -- because, of course, he can't tell us.
Mr. Lonnie Snyder proceeds to demonstrate that he is astoundingly uninformed when it comes to the legalities of rape. He writes: "When the woman, 'Nicole,' made her statement rescinding her rape accusation, she said, 'She had been kissing and drinking with [him] … [she] may have in fact have been so friendly and intimate with [him]' that things got carried away. I maintain that this is not her fault. I have been taught that consensual sex requires that I ask whether a woman is OK with a sexual act, then give her time to respond. If I feel like she is not OK, then I stop initiating sex." (Emphasis supplied.)
Mr. Lonnie Snyder has been taught wrong. Consent does not "require" a verbal manifestation of assent. Consent is any manifestation of assent to enter into sexual relations. It can be expressed by conduct as well as words, and it can be shown from all the surrounding circumstances. The test is whether a reasonable person in the position of the male would understand that consent has been given. The woman’s secret, undisclosed intentions, desires or whims, and her ex post facto, false and belated, after-the-fact hissy fits of regrets, are of no import; all that matters are her external, objective manifestations of assent at the time of the act.
Then Mr. Lonnie Snyder regales us with his views on rape in general, which could have been copied verbatim from the most virulent anti-male radical feminist's playbook. "I think that the most important thing we can do to help a rape survivor is to believe them," he ejaculates. Rape is, after all, "one of the most underreported crimes in this country." And: "In the U.S. there is an epidemic of sexual harassment or assault - and most of it isn't reported. This means that these silent victims will live forever with the internal stigma, shame and psychological aftermath of a traumatic experience without ever getting help. These people are truly alone."
On and on he blathers, one feminist mantra cascades atop the next until they collapse upon one another to form a sort of Rorschach inkblot of unmistakable misandry. It's all here: women might lie about everything under the sun but, mirabile dictu, the subject of rape acts as a truth serum that forces anyone not possessing a Y-Chromosome to speak incontrovertible truth. When it comes to rape, one gender is incapable of telling a lie while the other is incapable of telling anything but lies. Except, of course, when the woman recants her rape claim -- in that instance, she automatically reverts to being a liar -- double-X chromosome be damned. Mr. Lonnie Snyder also trots out the canard that rape is rampant because of underreporting. We know that rape is rampant because no one is reporting all these rapes that must be occurring, which proves, of course, that rape is rampant. Get it? Neither does anyone else.
And when Mr. Lonnie Snyder automatically believes every rape claim, by necessity, he brands every male ever accused of rape a "rapist." Without a scrap of evidence having been admitted at trial, every male ever accused of rape is guilty in the court of last resort, the op-ed pages of Drexel University's student newspaper. To hell with the fact that upwards of half of all rape claims, or more, are likely false, as shown by objectively verifiable data. In fact, every unbiased study ever conducted on the subject shows false rape claims are a very serious problem. Every single one. But why let the facts get in the way of a good feminist victim metanarrative? Anyway, don't blame Mr. Lonnie Snyder for not knowing about the countless men who have been falsely accused -- after all, his feminist mentors never mentioned them, did they? Mr. Lonnie Snyder would do well to spend a couple of days reviewing the true-life accounts of the falsely accused on this website before he writes another op-ed piece. And when he reads their stories, maybe he'll think to himself about these "silent victims [who] will live forever with the internal stigma, shame and psychological aftermath of a traumatic experience without ever getting help. These people are truly alone."
Mr. Lonnie Snyder's piece never should have found its way inside this newspaper; it frankly seems to have been written so that Mr. Lonnie Snyder's other piece could find its way inside some hot feminist who buys into this horseshit. I have no patience for feminists who treat men accused of rape as flotsam, and even less for college men who regurgitate vile feminist shibboleths when it comes to false rape claims. Young men like Mr. Lonnie Snyder live their lives in blissful ignorance, unaware that, as a young, Y-Chromosome carrying member of the human race, it could be him rotting away in a jail cell on the other side of the planet. He does a disservice to all falsely accused young men who are victims of this most foul circumstance, and he should be ashamed of himself.
HERE IS THE OP-ED PIECE:
Does society have a 'blame the victim'mentality?
Lonnie Snyder
Issue date: 4/17/09 Section: Ed-Op
I was reading The Wall Street Journal recently and I came across an article that really bothered me - a woman from the Philippines, who originally claimed she had been raped by a U.S. marine, has rescinded her rape accusation.
As reported by The Wall Street Journal, "It wasn't clear why the woman identified as Nicole in court papers, recanted her testimony in a sworn in statement."
After reading that very statement, my head filled with questions and theories. Why would a person suddenly decide that she had not been raped, especially since a court ruling declared that she had indeed been raped in 2005? I wondered if there was outside pressure that caused her to recant her statement.
I find it hard to believe that a victim would just change her story without interference, or possibly a threat. I think society unfairly blames the victims of sexual assaults more than they blame the aggressors. I believe that if a person says he or she was raped, then that is exactly what we should believe.
From listening to survivors of rape and sexual assault, the hardest part of reporting a rape or sexual assault is telling your friends, because friends might not believe an assault took place. I might add, these people are both male and female survivors. I think that the most important thing we can do to help a rape survivor is to believe them. This holds essential since rape is one of the most underreported crimes in this country. Many in the criminal justice community estimate the amounts of sexual assaults that actually occur to be over double the amount that are reported.
Think for a moment what this means: In the U.S. there is an epidemic of sexual harassment or assault - and most of it isn't reported. This means that these silent victims will live forever with the internal stigma, shame and psychological aftermath of a traumatic experience without ever getting help. These people are truly alone.
Further, I really don't like to hear that a person is being pressured to deny that she was raped, as is the case with the woman in the Philippines. I respect that she had the courage to initially report this and go through all the long court proceedings in 2005. She and the accused man were said to have been out to a dinner and a club the night of the rape.
When the woman, "Nicole," made her statement rescinding her rape accusation, she said, "She had been kissing and drinking with [him] … [she] may have in fact have been so friendly and intimate with [him]" that things got carried away.
I maintain that this is not her fault. I have been taught that consensual sex requires that I ask whether a woman is OK with a sexual act, then give her time to respond. If I feel like she is not OK, then I stop initiating sex. I have learned this through my membership in the group One in Four at Drexel. Of course, when alcohol is involved, everything is different. I know in Pennsylvania, you cannot consent to have sex if you are intoxicated. I do not know what the law is in the Philippines, but I still think that the male in question was wrong to initiate sex if he saw that she was intoxicated. I encourage more students to read up on this issue and to take a stand.
Getting involved doesn't mean you have to drop everything and march on Washington, or spend hours defending your position at a legislative meeting. If you are looking for some way to speak out against sexual assault or rape, Drexel frequently hosts many speakers on the topic. There are organizations to advocate the restriction of domestic violence and/or sexual assault. But even if these measures seem like too much for you, you can make a difference on your own as well. If you hear some of your friends joking about rape, I encourage you to explain to them that it is actually very hurtful, not funny, to both men and women.
Link: http://www.thetriangle.org/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticle&ustory_id=0f1084e5-a214-4afd-8683-973edf2a21d1
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19 comments:
Silly lapdog mangina, groveling at the feet of radical gender feminists won't get you laid. It's just going to make you yet another pathetic chivalrous beta-male looser to be viewed with contempt by the women you desire.
You see, whole idea of declaring all men rapists just let's nice guy's like you shoulder the collective blame for all those bad boys that the women regret having let themselves be used for sex by.
And you though that they were going to love and respect you because you made a puppet out of yourself. Nice!
slwerner, beautifully stated, as always. I don't know which I detest more: the misinformation or the supreme confidence with which it is delivered.
"Eunech speek"...is language/writing that is faulty and in flamatory against men/fathers/boys, that is engaged in by desperate males to try and get female attention.
What will happen men/fathers get sick and tired of vilified because of these "hate speech journalists"??
Nothing will change until we dig up the roots of the faulty and inflammatory hate speech. This silly mangina is pawn, that regurgitates the hysteria that surrounds him.
A civil rights lawsuit against the gender feminist / law enforcement MISINFORMATION ALLIANCE, is taking the battle to the root of the perversion.
"I don't know which I detest more: the misinformation or the supreme confidence with which it is delivered.Obviously, my comments are not going to get past the Site Administrator at The Triangle - but I did include a link back to this site for their further education, assuming they're brave enough to have a look.
"I believe that if a person says he or she was raped, then that is exactly what we should believe. "
The entire article is excreble, but this phrase in particular bothers me most.
Why should we disinterested parties automatically believe a rape accuser any more than an accuser of any other kind of crime? To do otherwise is Napoleonic.
Here's a suggestion: why don't we treat all accusations of treason as true on their face, and it is the burden of the accused to prove otherwise.
I suspect that the left-wingers who so blithely accept the automatic veracity of a rape accusation are quick to say that a treason accusation isn't valid until proven. Is there some demonstrable difference between the holiness of a female rape accuser and a female treason accuser?
And as for the suspicious nature of the recantation, I can understand how some are hollering foul over the notion that a man convicted of rape could be freed because his accuser recants two years hence.
I wish those same hollering people would note that their suspicion that the recantation was coerced or whatever is simply the flip side of the skepticism that people such as myself hold rape accusations in the first place. We are left inquiring into the motives of the accuser to see if he/she has an underlying motive to level a rape charge. I don't automatically believe that a rape accusation is valid. Neither should they automatically believe that the recantation is invalid.
slwerner and EW, you've raised the level of discourse on our blog. Thank you.
First, slwerner, I tried to post a comment on that site yesterday and was censored. My response to being censored is what you see here. Thanks for sending them the link.
Second, EW, any recantation must be reviewed skeptically, I suppose, but to dismiss it out of hand in a rape case is often to reward the initial lie for having its intended effect -- it often rewards a liar just for being good at lying.
It is astounding that rape-crisis feminists insist that women don't lie about rape (they even want a legislative articulation that women don't lie when they cry rape by reversing the burden of proof -- the most dangerous proposal to men of which I am aware: Feminist Scholar Proposes Most Dangerous Idea Ever). Yet, these same rape-crisis feminists insist with equal fervor that when women recant their rape claims, they somehow metamorphose into the same lying dogs that men are.
Notice the trend? It's only "the truth" if it will send a male -- any male, guilty, innocent, who cares? -- to prison.
" Notice the trend? It's only "the truth" if it will send a male -- any male, guilty, innocent, who cares? -- to prison. "
A whole lots of truth in so few words.
Ibet the mangina who wrote that article would be singing a different tune if he is ever falsely accused of rape or sexual assault. It is always different when it is someone else who has to suffer the BS!
" Young men like Mr. Lonnie Snyder live their lives in blissful ignorance, unaware that, as a young, Y-Chromosome carrying member of the human race, it could be him rotting away in a jail cell on the other side of the planet. He does a disservice to all falsely accused young men who are victims of this most foul circumstance, and he should be ashamed of himself. "
Not only does he do a severe diservice to all men, he does a severe diservice to the parents,siblings,friends and, communities of men who are victims of false rape accusations and other potential victims of this destructive, criminal act
Lol… being a feminist doesn't get anyone laid.
I've met someone who wanted to join a feminist group thinking it might get him laid. He was one of the most sexist assholes I've ever met. If you really think that: a) you're really sexist, b) - you fail to understand women in any way, c) - you must have seen a hot feminist woman once and you couldn't get in her pants or d) – all of the above.
The article was meant to point out something: that in many cases victims aren't believed, and society does make it look like it's the victim's fault, and that most allegations are false, etc. That’s BS. There are hundreds of thousands of rape cases every year in the US alone; 2-8% are found to be false, and it's really easy to get to the bottom of a bad case. Ask any good attorney who doesn't specialize in defending rapists (for two reasons... they are biased and they are dumb). If the case is bad, it's found bad in court. A law student and once told me of the many tactics and tricks that attorneys have to make a false accuser break.
The writer was trying to suggest how to support a potential victim, and we can do that by firstly not disbelieving what they say. And the context is a society that makes it hard for rape victims to even report because most of them are afraid their stories aren't going to be believed... and they will be found more guilty for being raped than the rapist himself/herself.
You're wrong if you think that Mr Snyder is suggesting that the accused be imprisoned without a fair trial and thorough investigation. I'm sorry, but you fail on that one!
Furthermore, on believing or disbelieving, think about this: if someone tells you they were raped, there is, at the worst, above a 90% chance that they were. If you're the first person he/she tells about this, and you meet the victim with disbelief, that might be all they need to never tell anyone else about this, and not report it. And another rapist walks free, maybe knowing or not knowing what they did, and being very prone to doing it again to someone else. And guess what, that's not a theory, that's truth. I've personally heard more than a few of these cases, including one in which the rapist's lawyer was so good, that after 3 years in case, he walks free and says to the victim "yeah, I should have known you weren't worth it". And if you don't believe me, take a look at the dozens of surveys from all the sources out there: the grand majority of rape cases go unreported.
So in conclusion, I might say that what you preach here on this blog actually helps rapists all over America walk free... but I'm not going to do that, because I don't think your intentions are evil, you're just misguided, and that can be fixed.
Or alternatively, you can stop being a misguided society-produced jackass and lower your guard down a bit, maybe a woman might be brave enough one day to tell you about her rape story (and yea, I say woman, cuz unfortunately men are not that brave and society makes it even harder for them to come forth... that's why 1 in 6 men having experienced rape is shocking to most of us).
I hope from this you realize that rape isn't a sexism issue, it's an everyone's issue: both men and women experience it, and both men and women commit it.
Also, let me tell you about what it's like to be fighting sexism as a man. Men sometimes listen, they identify with me more than they would with a woman. But women are a harder nut to crack then men when it comes to sexism (yes, there are women who hold sexist thoughts/views!). If I try to tell a woman using the word "bitch" to replace it with something else, I usually get something like "who are you to tell me about sexism, I'm a woman, I know better" and they just shut down. So often women are just as hard to work with as men. And speaking from personal experience, being a feminist man doesn't get you any more tail than you'd get on your own anyway (in fact, somehow, I notice sexist guys get a lot more). If you don't believe me, try being a feminist for a year!
But until then, you, Sir, are just FAIL!
also, check out http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070821191757AAnOyo5.
Some folks made some very insightful comments.
Any common idiot can get into law school... try pursuing a real profession like medicine or engineering. too challenging for you? you're right - it's so much easier to throw stones from behind your worthless JD.
Just in case my e-mail didn't go through, I have put on the table an offer for you to come and speak with Lonnie Snyder and his organization at Drexel -- One in Four -- about this. It would be an open discussion rather than a back-and-forth blame game, since that does nothing to solve any problems. Writing articles is nice, but this issue probably should be discussed in person so that we all have a chance to make decent points and potentially learn something from one another.
Feel free to reply to this post to set up a meeting in some public place. I would put up my e-mail address, but spam bots would likely be all over it.
I would hate to see such an opinionated individual with so much to say back down from this offer, so please, take us up on this. We are open to all constructive criticism, so bring your A game.
Children -- I have just now seen the belated comments from October under this post, and they made me chuckle. Thank you, for making my day.
Oh, my, looking at some of the comments. Take this, for example: ". . .if someone tells you they were raped, there is, at the worst, above a 90% chance that they were."
Well, what can I say? I am familiar with every serious, unbiased study on this subject, and that's simply wrong. You know, sexual assault counselors still repeat the two percent canard, long after Mr. Greer traced it to its baseless origin. So am I surprised that some college student makes an astounding statement like that? Seriously?
There's no "debating" you people. I have real facts from unbiased sources. You have "truth," through politicized ideology that isn't based on silly things like facts.
Our offer to discuss this in person still stands. Please reply if you would like to set up a meeting to discuss this in a public place.
Jordan, if I thought there was anything to discuss, I'd consider it. When you've been practicing law for as long as I have -- 26 years -- you learn that on some cases, the parties are so far apart there won't ever be a settlement. My website has published innumerable objectively verifiable posts that demonstrate the correctness of what I've stated. I can't argue against politicized mantras grounded in gender ideology. There aren't "two truths." There is one, and I've worked hard to figure out what it is, divorced from gender politics or any other ideology. In case you don't follow my blog, I'm an outcast in the "men's rights" community, too, because I of the subheading to my blog.
No, I can't "talk" to ideology that insists it is right just because it fits with a particular victim metanarrative.
We did a whole post on the last comment left here:
http://falserapesociety.blogspot.com/2010/04/steve-thought-everybody-should-see-this.html
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