Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Word to the wise

Apparently, a "loving couple" in California, apparently a surgeon and his aspiring schoolteacher/dancer girlfriend, have been accused of drug-induced rape after over 1000 videos of them having sex with unconscious victims were found in his home.


Now "innocent until proven guilty" and all that, but as the evidence looks pretty damning, we might conclude a few things.  First of all, sometimes people will do some seriously sick stuff, and sometimes people will help others do so.  Honestly, an aspiring teacher helped her boyfriend rape other women?  Seriously?  But yet there is video; she was at least being the female equivalent of "cuckolded."


Second, sometimes these things can go under the radar for a long, long time.  It boggles the mind to think that dozens, or hundreds, of women who woke up in a strange home with a nasty hangover and pain/foreign substances in strange places without anyone ever going to the doctor or contacting police.


Third, it can take police a long time to take action even when there are credible allegations--in this case, it's been 23 months since a woman was rescued by police after being raped, and 29 months since a woman went to police with multiple drugs in her system.  It almost seems as if it took the police months, or years, to take action even when they knew the very apartment where the crimes occurred.


Finally, if you're going to go out drinking, this sad case suggests that you'll be wise to go with a friend who will remain sober enough to help you out if someone "puts the moves" on you in this sort of way, and quite frankly it might be smart as well to commit to remaining relatively sober overall.  It might also be smart to avoid what we used to call "singles bars"; like it or not, I don't know that an "anything goes" sexual culture is compatible with personal safety.   Things that Grandpa would have instantly recognized as the work of a "rake" go under the radar when it's acceptable to go home with someone that very night.

8 comments:

Hearth said...

You have to have a friend who commits to being COMPLETELY sober **and** keeping an eye on you all night. A careful eye - it only takes a minute to be roofied, at which point you look like you're falling down drunk.

Getting drunk (deliberately incapacitating yourself) amongst strangers is dumb, but it only takes half of one drink to dissolve a pill.

Bike Bubba said...

You have obviously worked with people who have been to far sleazier bars than I've ever been to. You might do a nice service to write something, or link something, about how to recognize them. Or does that kind of nonsense happen at respectable looking bars, and I've just not noticed?

Hearth said...

I believe the bar in question was at least reasonably respectable looking. Happened to a friend of a friend, she woke up in a stranger's bed, alone - but clearly had not been alone that night. She didn't report, she ran home crying. They'd all gone as a group, but had lost sight of her for 15-30 minutes, and they were all drinking so... Remember, if you have a falling down drunk girl, and no one knows her, you can take her home by saying, "Oh jenna got a bit tipsy, I'm gonna take her home". Doesn't have to be a dive bar to get away with that.

You really have to throw out any drink that you've ever left for even 30 seconds. http://www.watton.org/drugsinfo/aboutrohypnol.shtml This method is also used at parties to acquire flesh for sex-trafficking. It behooves women to get a clue that they're in danger and take precautions, but that wouldn't be feminist, apparently.

Something to remember is that I live in easy range of Mexico, so smuggling in Roofies is trivially easy here.

Bike Bubba said...

Oh, the things that I've missed. Thanks!

Gino said...

but what is rape?
the tale of my recollections, that i posted today...
if either of those young girls lost their flower that night, i will not call it rape.
the law might say differently...
i get that.

both those boys involved were 16 yrs old on that night. I was 17.

Chico, a decent boy, really... would have finished the act if Mike hadnt 'raised his awareness', so to speak. he was still free to do so, but he chose not to. he wasnt that kind of boy.
Chico thought that he was with another kind of girl, giving her behavior at the time.

FTR, Chico and I didnt get along well, or at all. we clashed often and openly. That doesnt mean that he's a bad person. it just means that he and i didnt appreciate each other. i do know, when he was properly informed, he always took the righteous path. many times, he was less of dick than i was.

he's doing very well know, as a grown man. and it doesnt surprise me at all.

Bike Bubba said...

Gino, if that happened today, the law says it's rape because the girls were drunk, though the statutory rape laws might not apply because of the "Romeo & Juliet" exceptions in many states. But if the matter were to come up today, I think the big issue is that it's become a political issue to "believe the girl", no matter what the problems are with her testimony. That's what happened with Nifong/Duke, what happened with UVA/Rolling Stone, and it appears that it's what's happening with Dr. Ford. Like I noted in the next post, it appears that demonstrably false accusations are about as common as convictions resulting in prison time. If true, that's huge.

elspeth said...

I fail to understand how it's possible for there to be any logical consistency in saying "alcohol impairs the woman's judgement or capacity to consent" while ignoring that alcohol also impairs a man's judgement and ability to properly read consent".

makes not sense to me.

Bike Bubba said...

You can also ask the question of whether it's always the man who initiates. There was an infamous case where a young man was punished by his university after a young "lady" decided to perform oral sex on him while he was passed out. Yes, the Title IX "verdict" was that somehow he'd forced himself on her while he was unconscious.

Seems I remember that schools used to punish people for significant intoxication, regardless of gender. Maybe it's time to bring that back.