Rape Culture: The Media View.

-snip-

You are a sick person. You're defending CNN and their sympathy towards rapists. Maybe you deserve to be in jail with them.

You are a sick person. You're defending CNN and their sympathy towards rapists. Maybe you deserve to be in jail with them.

If your anger is that some people can show the smallest amount of sympathy or understanding then you have issues.

Sympathy is not an emotion you give to a rapist.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sympathy

Sympathy is not an emotion you give to a rapist.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/sympathy

What stands out in the definition is this "4. A feeling of loyalty; allegiance."
By the definition of sympathy, you are saying that you feel pity in some way towards the rapists, pity is an emotion one has when they do not wish to see someone in pain or misfortune for the situation they are given. You are saying that you feel sorry for them because they are being punished for being rapists.

Do you not see the issue with that?

If you're going to use a literal definition that sadly I have to point you back at LustfulAngel's post. You don't get to decide when and if a definition suits you especially if you're going to go about "rape culture".

What happened to the rapists, is not an unfortunate event, there is no aspect of what happened to them can be characterized as unlucky.

No one is making the argument that they were innocent or that they don't deserve some form of punishment for their crimes. Most people are saying this whole situation is unfortunate. Also I'm the one who told you that not him. You couldn't properly argue that there is a "rape culture" within his context. I can't argue about getting a full perspective of the situation because you automatically assume CNN and others lament the imprisonment of these students because they felt they were wronged(which isn't true).


Also you should still follow the rules of SD, whether it's your thread or not.

His context is stating that there is no rape culture, which there is clearly is.

https://www.fakku.net/viewtopic.php?p=3635943#3635943

And there are people here who have the frame of mind to tell me that what happened to me, is so rare that it doesn't happen to anyone, male or female. I was in nearly the same situation that this girl was placed in, in the very article we are talking about. Yet people want to give any sympathy to the rapists.

The simple fact that our society saw my situation because I was a man as not important, is more than enough proof to show that rape culture does exist. Ignoring a problem and not speaking about things is the exact same as praising them.

The victim of the rape, that is someone who has had an extremely unfortunate event. What happened to the rapists, is not an unfortunate event, there is no aspect of what happened to them can be characterised as unlucky. They are deserving of what they got, and they did get off easy.

You don't get to tell me that I can't use literal definitions when they are used against me, and not expect to get insulted.

This is my topic, don't tell me to stop posting in MY TOPIC. Your attempting to bully me out and it won't work. My topic was about the CNN coverage of the rape case and the choice of words used. This topic is about the opinions on what the verdict should be and peoples opinions on the matter. It was most certainly not a debate over the title of the thread.

That's a matter of opinion in some ways, just look at the reaction to the verdict. The town to which these people came from are defending the actions of these individuals who commited the rape as if they did not do anything wrong, and the way that CNN reported on the event made it seem as if the victim of the rape was the aggressor commiting a wrong against these two young athletes. The amount of hate mail towards the victim only proves that there is an issue of rape culture, or something therein akin to it.

If you say that these two people are having their lives ruined because of it, what you are essentially saying is that they are unjustly being convicted. That is saying that they are innocent, that the crime never took place. I don't see how that is not rape culture.

common prevalent normalize tolerate condone

Unbelievable,you somehow described what culture is and still couldn't understand it. Shall I highlight some words for you...

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/common

Common: "a. Occurring frequently or habitually; usual."

In other words, a 'Rape Culture' would be in which rape is perpetuated on a consistent basis. Wanna know what we call those? A war zone! Such as the Rape of Nanking in WW2. Or in Sub Africa. Civilized nations do not have such a frequent rape occurrence.

http://www.tamu.edu/faculty/choudhury/culture.html

"A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next."

Yes, that so totally describes rape and how it's perceived in North America....Not

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre#Rape
"estimated that 20,000 women were raped"
(I also this would more or less be war crimes, not culture, comparable but not in this context)

Statistics show rape being more common in the US, as well, that's only 1 year

The fact that you so blatantly rush to denounce these statements without any actual reflection, adherence, or acknowledgement of what the core issue, rape, is really screams "normalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone rape" to me.

This is only further enforced by the fact that your first comment, in this thread, never actually addresses rape, but the perception of a "rape culture" and you trying to express what you see it as (that you do not connect to rape itself). Something that ignores "rape" in context, and instead lectures on prevention methods.

-As in, people accepting, "A woman walking around at night, alone, most likely will be raped" as normal?
-Or as, "Never take your eyes off a drink in a party, you'll most likely be ruffy'd, which leads to rape" as normal?

-As well, "Statistics say that ~blank~ amount of men will most likely try to rape you" as normal?
-Where, "if you go out drinking, do it with a friend, who knows who'll approach you and do..." as normal.
-Where, listening to Morning Joe, they can talk about rapist owning guns from lack of back ground checks at gun shows, as being normal and something that, just now, needs to be addressed.
-When we can make movies about women being raped, and ignore the rape, Killbill (only name I remember), as the least important or significant aspect of the story.
-Where parents have to warn and fear for their daughters well being more so than sons. (Admittedly this one is more or less under "male on female crimes in general")

This thread was about rape culture, if you want to be mad and only talk about rape it go ahead. Not once did he say rape was okay, or that it should be tolerated. We know what these young adults did.

In the wake of the Steubenville rape case and it's verdict from sunday that was handed to these two young athletes, there has been a quite diverse reaction to the outcome of the trial, especially within this small town in Ohio, and with the families that have become so chaotically binded together over such an event. But it is in my opinion shocking and disgusting to see some of the reactions that are unfolding through the media. To start with the initial coverage of the trial by CNN, in which they claimed that the aggressors of this crime should be seen as the victims. That those to quote them "two young promising football athletes have had their lives ruined by this rape case.".

What disgusts be about this is that journalistic integrity is being thrown aside with no concious thought to morality, but instead favouring the controversy of rape culture, in declaring the victim of this crime as the aggressor by ruining these two young mens lives. That is horrible journalism if I ever saw it.

There is a petition for anyone who wishes to sign to try and hold CNN accountable for it's horrid journalism found here:

https://www.change.org/petitions/cnn-apologize-on-air-for-sympathizing-with-the-steubenville-rapists?utm_campaign=share_button_action_box&utm_medium=facebook&utm_source=share_petition


Now I will start to talk about the reactions to this. Almost immediately after the verdict was handed to these two young men, the twitter and facebook feeds became overwhelmed with opinions from all over. Some of which were in support of the two young men, idolizing them, and sympathizing with them over their commited crime. As these two articles are linked below, (yes one is from CNN), two women related to the families of the aggressors were arrested for threats of bodily harm and murder towards the victim of this crime.

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_bn1#/video/bestoftv/2013/03/19/ac-harlow-steubenville-mother-statement.cnn

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/19/wrd-ohio-girls-charged-threat-rape-victim.html


This only goes to remind me of the entire cyber bully issue that lead to the death of the teen girl who took her life after being bullied at school and online. There is a large lack of accountability in our modern world for the actions of younger members of our society who believe that it is acceptable to go online and threaten people because they see themselves as untouchable.

To weigh in on my opinion for this, I do not think that the aggressors of this crime were punished enough. These atheletes got off rather easy, and the witnesses of the crime have yet to be punished for their involvement in this crime. There are several pictures that were circulated, and there are clearly other people besides the aggressors in the pictures, not to mention the people who took the pictures.

But with all that said, I do believe that the victim has some responsibility as well in the act of the crime. I know this will be very controversal as I say it, but in my personal life as I was growing up. Every single person was held accountable for their actions, even in the bad situation that resulted towards a victim, even if that victim was you. Allow me to elaborate on this more, the victim of this crime made a concious decision to join a party and made a concious decision to drink beyond the limit to which she was capable. She has made poor decisions in this situation and should be held accountable for her actions. This does not mean being easy on the aggressors of the rape because that is not her fault.

I do not see how anyone is blameless in this form of crime. If the victim was attacked on the street for instance, that would be a situation where the victim is blameless. I do not go to parties and I do not overly drink because I am accountable for any bad decisions that I make while intoxicated.

Opinions?

The title of the thread was called Rape Culture: The Media View, because it is a provocative title. But I must ask you one thing, and I'll even quote myself just to help you out. Where in my origional post did I ask anyone about rape culture, the definition of rape culture, or opinions on rape culture. My Entire first post was about the court case of the two young athletes and the CNN coverage of the event.

It's always nice to see how a thread gets derailed so much and when I tried to bring it back into line with the origional post, I was told that I was changing the subject. Makes sense.

You implied that CNN did something wrong and that their behavior fosters and is proof of rape culture. Provocative title or not, that was your point, was it not?

If you had no intention of talking about it, don't mention it. Do you want an anger circle jerk? Take that to Random or IB then.

You were the one engaging LA, and I was talking bakapink. Didn't say you changed anything.

The moment you sympathize with a criminal, you have done something wrong, especially for a media outlet.

You can not believe that someone deserves what they have gotten while feeling sympathy because sympathy itself is an emotion that is given to someone who is unlucky.

They are rapists, they don't deserve sympathy. You've blithered on about how you want to understand why people do it, what causes it, how to stop it. Well start by not giving them sympathy. Cause sympathy makes others feel good.

If I go out an murder a child in kindergarden, are you going to feel sorry because I get a life sentence in jail? I mean my life will have been ruined too. Knowing people are on your side is a comfort, it tells you that what you did is not completely bad because people are still willing to stand behind you. I'm still not sure which part of this is confusing you.

I have no clue what this even means. Bakapink? If we're going to have a discussion, at least use the common english vocab.

There's absolutely nothing confusing me, I know your stance, and I know why I choose mine. But I do think anger and disappointment is clouding your judgement if you truly believe CNN did something wrong.

There is nothing clouding my judgement on my opinion that CNN did something wrong, whether they choose to acknowledge it or not is irrelevent. They made a very poor choice of words, a very poor choice of direction for their coverage and I am not the only one who believes this.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/20/poppy-harlow-cnn-steubenville-rape-coverage-criticism_n_2914853.html
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/cnn-steubenville-rape-poppy-harlow-144458279.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/03/21/cnn-speak-up-on-steubenville/

Other news sites are reporting on the poor choices made by CNN for their coverage of this event. That only goes to show that there was bad judgement.