I played high school football in that area, and unfortunately I can say that this sort of threat was not uncommon. While no one got to the point of pulling down pants and making a real attempt, more than one kid was chased around with a broomstick with the threat of anal rape. It was a "hazing" feared by younger…

I remember doing a lot of stupid stuff as a 15 year old, but I do not recall a single time in my life when I thought it would be a good idea to jam a broomstick up another person's ass. Last night I saw some of the security camera video from the Vanderbilt rape case and I thought the same thing about that - I've never…

"He was such a nice guy! I can't believe he would rape anyone!"

I know you want to make this about human weakness in general, but it isn't. The same police department has a 85% rate of conviction for simple assault, so it can't be mere incompetence. This is an issue of systematic misogyny, shockingly poor training if any at all, and a lack of any mechanisms for accountability or…

We give the accused the benefit of the doubt by granting them a fair trial, we give the accuser our faith by doing the work to find out what happened.

I don't advocate treating an accuser as a liar, but rather to give the benefit of the doubt to the accused

I was raped by an acquaintance in high school who took my virginity and if I run into him in the city where we both live I still am fucking paralyzed into being cordial. It was six years ago and the thought of confronting him still fills me with terror. The closest I got was weeks after via AIM when I said "I hate…

My girlfriend was raped by her father as a child. When she went to her mother for help, her mother called her a whore that deserved it and beat her mercilessly. She was 9. The next five years of her life until she finally ran away consisted of a steady pattern of getting raped by dad and beaten by mom for being raped…

This IS exactly why people don't report, and it's also why consent education is crucial — for *women,* as well as for men. When women are raped, they too often internalize the dominant script — it must have been an accident, a mistake, a miscommunication, probably their fault at least as much as his, etc etc — and…

My theory about people like Cathy Young: sometimes I get completely and utterly overwhelmed by the awfulness of the world, ya know? Like, I used to drive by a Home Depot where day laborers hung out and it made me cry. I mean, that seems a bit silly because I think it was a good place to get work, but the point is that…

We have this cultural notion that I see getting in the way of how we think of not just rapists, but all major criminals: We can't seem to shake this myth that "good people don't do bad things."

I'm just going by my own experience, but having a ~real live rapist~ in the family (grandfather) sure does seem to make a lot of people (grandmother, uncle) want to pretend that all raped women are liars (mother, aunt). These people make me sick.

"More then 2hours and no tweet about all the shit weve [sic] done," one complained.

Jesus Christ. This is a great article (you are becoming one of my favorite writers on here) and I'm so sorry you're going through all this.

I'm so sorry that happened to you, and not at all surprised by the police response.

Max hit the jackpot in terms of wives. She plays video games with him and that is her idea of a good Friday night. That man is blessed. Good for him, I'm jealous.