Jun 10 2014

Being a victim of sexual assault is a “coveted status that confers privileges”

(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)

The Washington Post columnist [George Will] thinks women are lying about sexual assault in order to get “privileges”

From Salon.com:

Washington Post columnist George Will doesn’t believe the statistic that one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college. Instead he believes that liberals, feminists and other nefarious forces have conspired to turn being a rape survivor into a “coveted status that confers privileges.” As a result of this plot, “victims proliferate,” Will wrote in a weekend editorial that ran in the Washington Post and New York Post.

Further compounding the crisis of people coming forward about sexual assault to stay de rigueur is the fact that “capacious” definitions of sexual assault include forcible sexual penetration and nonconsensual sexual touching. Which is really very outrageous, according to Will. It is really very hard to understand why having your breasts or other parts of your body touched against your will should be frowned upon.

It’s not very surprising that George Will does not think that sexual assault on campus is a big deal. It’s also not very surprising that he thinks that definitions of sexual violence are somehow overly broad because they factor in forms of sexual contact other than penetration. But what is puzzling – about this editorial and the army of nearly identical pieces of rape apologia that find a way into national newspapers with some regularity – is how much one has to ignore in order to argue these points.

photo george_will.jpg

I’m sorry, readers, I usually put a little bit more effort into my posts than just a blurb and yes, I know this will stir up (and rightly so) outrage among us.  But this needs to be discussed.

I wonder what the response to this madness should be?

Your ideas on how to respond?

deweyatchley63

8 comments

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  1. like this fuckwit.

    GRRRRR.

  2. Just like a certain so-called “progressive” web site,Daily Kos, they bless this psychological abuse of victims of sexual assault.

    Where is the rest of the MSM? I’ve been watching MSNBC most of the day and crickets. They are willing to chastise the right for trying and convicting Bowe Bergdahl but not for this filth.

    Letters, e-mail, phone calls and swamp the comment section politely insisting both Will and WaPo apologize and not in one of those “We’re sorry if we offended anyone” letters but a sincere retraction and some kind of sanction for Will.

  3. Has he never seen how a sexual assault victim is treated in a court of law, let alone the court of public opinion?

  4. The Bowtied Monster

    Hear that, college women? There’s a “coveted status that confers privileges” to crying rape. (Hard to believe so many women choose not to embrace this important career move by reporting their assaults.)  To paraphrase what the late Molly Ivins once said to Camille Paglia on a similar topic — I’ve got some Texas football frat boys I’d like George to meet. I don’t even want to get into why Will chose that breaking-academia-to-the-saddle metaphor, although he does look like the middle-school librarian whose tastes run to the sting of the whip. However, I would like to compliment him on his use of the word “progressivism” as a catch-all for anyone he doesn’t like. He has set up a lovely little corner of Glennbeckistan for himself. This guy was once reckoned to be an American intellect. Now, he’s writing like a sociopath, except about baseball, on which he writes like a foof. Not much soulcraft to trolling rape victims, George. Not much at all.

    He’s fit right in at Daily Kos

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