Rape is caused by Rapists
“In March, (Brock)Turner was convicted of three felony counts: sexually penetrating an unconscious person with a foreign object, sexually penetrating an intoxicated person with a foreign object, and assault with an intent to commit rape.”
The ludicrous sentence handed down by Judge Persky, in the Brock Turner rape trial, triggered a high decibel outcry of indignation across the Country. The volume ramped up with petitions to recall Judge Persky. The firestorm gained momentum when the victim’s letter, read in court by her to her assailant. Then letters from Turner and Turner’s mother and father surfaced. The rape of an unconscious woman at a Stanford party by Brock Turner, and the lenient sentence he received from Judge Persky went viral.
Scott Simon, Host of NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday interviewed Dr. Michele Danber, a Stanford Law School professor, the lenient sentence given to Brock Turner. Turner, a former Stanford University swimmer, was found guilty of the sexual assault of an unconscious woman. Prof. Danber is the Stanford law professor who's strongly advocating the removal of Persky.
“It’s incredible,” said Dr. Dauber, who has pressed for the recall of the judge who sentenced Turner. “Why did that happen? First of all, it’s the tremendous power and clarity of thought that is reflected in the survivor’s statement.”
I went on-line and read the victim’s letter to the perpetrator. She showed great courage facing the person, who caused her the worst personal trauma she will probably ever experience. Writing her letter took courage, reading it to her attacker in open court took even more. She read: “He admitted to wanting to hook up with someone. I was the wounded antelope of the herd, completely alone and vulnerable, physically unable to fend for myself, and he chose me. Sometimes I think, if I hadn’t gone [to the party], then this never would’ve happened. But then I realized, it would have happened, just to somebody else.”
I am an ecologist. My education and fieldwork, and interaction and collaboration with biologists and ecologists, has opened the door to a gold mine of information, observations, research, and conversations about the natural world. One of those associations is with a large predator biologist researcher and another, an Evolutionary Biologist, who is an expert in primate behavior. It is clear that apex predator’s prey on the weak and there is evidence that coercion of females by males occurs with some frequency not only in our fellow primate species but also other animals. What isn’t clear, at least to me, is what frequency sexual coercion or sexual violence occurs in these species. In my view both sexual coercion and sexual violence are the same.
Apex mammal predators: felines, canids, bears, etc. opportunistically feed on almost any animal they can find to eat. When they hunt, even as a pack, they seldom target a healthy animal. It is the young, sick, injured, or an old animal that is usually targeted. While there is considerable debate about including humans on the list of apex predators, human sexual predators demonstrate apex characteristics and behaviors. They target the young, exploited, weaker, or incapacitated fellow humans and are opportunistic.
The victim in the Stanford rape was targeted. She was incapacitated from drinking, unable to protect herself. Turner, according to trial testimony, was aggressive to other women, both at the party he and his victim attended and at previous parties.
Brock Turner’s mother and father both wrote letters to the court about their son, as did a childhood friend of Turner. The parents wrote what many parents would have written. They wrote about his childhood, their perception about his personality, his behavior, and his potential. They begged the court for mercy for their son, whom they painted as incapable of being a sexual predator. It was clear, from phone records, and testimony from other’s who knew Turner, in high school and at Stanford, that Brock’s parents didn’t know their son.
Contrary to their perceptions, he partied and drank hard, smoked pot, and had likely used LSD and Ecstasy. And, according to testimony, Brock had displayed aggressive behavior towards other women. During his assault, at Stanford, he texted photos of her breasts to friends.
In letters written by Turner’s parents they portrayed him as a model citizen who had a brilliant future waiting. They didn’t go so far as saying that he was enticed into sexually assaulting the woman but they did infer that he wasn’t the kind of person who would have acted on his own. Instead of expressing sorrow and regret for their son’s actions--the rape of an unconscious woman--they, instead, wrote that their son couldn’t have been a sexual predator if he hadn’t been drinking and suggested that there was incitement.
“There is a connection between alcohol and sexual violence, but it’s not one of cause and effect. There is one way alcohol is a problem, and it’s that it makes it easier for assailants to overpower drunk targets. Alcohol may be used as a weapon, or an excuse for aggressive behavior. But the only thing necessary for a rape to happen is the presence of a rapist.”
“As it stands now, Brock’s life has been deeply altered forever by the events of Jan 17th and 18th.” Dan Turner, Brock's father, wrote in his letter to the judge. “These verdicts have broken and shattered him and our family in so many ways. His life will never be the one that he dreamed about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”
What?
There was no mention in Dan Turner's letter, about the impacts to Brock’s victim; how his son had irrevocably altered the victim’s life.
“I beg of you, please don’t send him to jail/prison. Look at him. He won’t survive it. He will be damaged forever and I fear he would be a major target. Stanford boy, college kid, college athlete- all the publicity……..this would be a death sentence for him.” His mother wrote to the court.
She went on to write: “His life is forever impacted and drastically altered by the ramifications of these guilty verdicts. Ohio is one of the strictest states with the sexual offender registry. Brock will have to register at the highest tier which means he is on the same level as a pedophile/child molester. There is no differentiation. The public records will reflect a Tier 3 so people will wrongly assume he is a child molester. I fear for his lifelong safety. So he, at the tender age of 20, now will have to register every 60 days for the rest of his life. He will live a lifetime of scrutiny, . . . .”
What? Again, there was no mention of the lifelong impacts to the victim from her son’s predation and violence.
Both her letter and Brock’s father’s letter showed no compassion for the victim, or acknowledged that their son had sexually assaulted the woman. The letters were egregious, self-centered, insensitive, and reflected the attitude of some people of privilege.
Brock will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life because he is a sex offender. That he may be in danger inside a correction facility is highly probably. I’ve seen postings that some people hope he is sexually assaulted in jail. Many rapists are themselves raped in prison but I doubt that they make the connection between their being targeted for sexual violence with the violence they perpetuated on their victim(s). Turner will struggle to find employment. They only person who is responsible for the way his life has been altered is Brock Turner. He made a choice to target his victim at the party and then sexually assault her.
“Our criminal system is widely understood to be a dual system of justice based on privileges,” Dr. Dauber said. “But there’s a nerve that’s being pushed. Here we’ve got proof, but we’re being told, ‘You know what, it doesn’t matter.’ Certain people who participate in our system of justice don’t understand sexual violence. They don’t understand violence against women, and they aren’t able to appropriately interpret the law in a way that protects women. The reason this case has really resonated for people is she did everything right. She was supposed to get justice. And she didn’t.”
Professor Danber is correct. The Judge should be recalled, sexual violence laws should be reviewed by each state to insure that these kind of kangaroo court decision are eliminated. The perpetrator has the right to appeal, the victim doesn’t!
Rape is not caused by the way people dress, if they are drinking or under the influence of drugs, or if they are making suggestive comments, flirting, etc. Brock Turner maintained the encounter was consensual. You cannot get consent from an unconscious person to engage in sexual activity. Brock, while he had a mild slap on the hand, legally, was not seeking as his father wrote “. . . 20 minutes of action. . .” he was a predator on the hunt. He is a rapist. There is a high probability that he will rape someone else in the future.
And!!! Brock is being released after serving three months!!