Quote:they were talking to my boobs.
I get annoyed (and embarresed) with myself when i notice i'm doing that. I feel my eyes just kinda slipping down and have to make a conciouse effort not to.
Quote:As long as you continue to reinforce the perception that abuse is this great tragedy you can never fully help the victims. Victims heal by accepting who they are, loving themselves, coming to know that the abuse is now part of them.....what you are doing is teaching that part of themselves is bad, can at best be tolerated and mitigated.You are such a reprobate. If I were married to you, I'd kill you - for fear you would give our children a "blessing
And we wonder why the pro's have such a bad track record dealing with abuse...
Like I said before, I don't know anyone who would do/has done that...
Girl, 15, recants kidnapping, rape story
She needed an excuse, she tells police
By Associated Press A 15-year-old California girl who claimed she had been kidnapped off the street at gunpoint and raped in the same town where another teenager was assaulted in a gang rape three months earlier told police Sunday she made up the story, authorities said.
The 15-year-old had claimed she was forced Friday night into a car with four males at gunpoint and driven around for several hours before two of them raped her.
But the girl called Richmond police around 1 p.m. Sunday and told them the story was not true, said Lt. Mark Gagan.
The girl told police Sunday that she had had consensual sex with someone, but needed an explanation for why she was late getting home Friday night, Gagan said.
The girl's accusations prompted a major police investigation in Richmond, where the gang rape of a high school girl outside a homecoming dance made national headlines in October.
Dozens of patrol officers, detectives, forensic technicians and nurses had been working on the investigation since the 15-year-old flagged down a San Pablo police officer early Saturday and claimed she had been kidnapped and raped.
"We took her allegations very serious and spent a lot of time, energy and resources to investigate this," Gagan said.
On Sunday afternoon, police found evidence, including video footage, that confirmed the girl had made up her initial story, Gagan said.
Richmond police are trying to determine what happened Friday night and could pursue statutory rape charges if the person she had sex with is an adult, he said.
Investigators have not determined whether they will pursue charges against the girl for making the false report.
"We don't want to create a situation where people are hesitant to report sex crimes," Gagan said. "On the other hand, this 15-year-old girl knew she was completely fabricating her story and misleading us about what really happened."
LAW OFFICES OF J. L. SIEGEL
936 Candlelite Drive
San Marcos, CA 92069
760-471-1335 Phone 760-510-1761 Fax
www.militaryjustice.com
Specializing in Military Law
11/30/2007
In re: NEW ARTICLE 120 Rape under the UCMJ
Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines
As of 1 October 2007, following drafting by Congress and subsequent approval by the White House, Article 120 has been significantly modified. It now includes in excess of 30 offenses which all qualify as sexual violations. No only are there new offenses, but offenses such as Indecent Language and Indecent Acts, which used to be under Article 134 will now be under Article 120, Rape
What is most important to remember is that conduct which may be thought of as “innocent” or “a joke” or “unintentional” can be prosecuted. For instance, touching someone on top of his/her clothing on the inner thigh is an offense and can be prosecuted. Using sexually insulting language, exposing one’s self, or any sexual touching of a child can be prosecuted.
Rape is no longer gender based and men or women can be prosecuted for rape and can be raped. Placing a person in fear of sexual assault is an offense even if it is not intended as an offense. Also significant is that the new article on rape has removed the element of “without consent” from the list of facts that the government has to initially prove beyond a reasonable doubt. In fact the burden of proof to a preponderance of the evidence is on the DEFENSE to prove that the act was WITH consent. This is an unprecedented change that exists no where else in the UCMJ or in any other jurisdiction in the United States. Once the defense meets its burden of proving the act was with consent, the government gets another chance to prove the act was without consent.
To every service member, the importance of all of these changes is that the moment that he or she becomes aware that someone has complained about conduct, a lawyer should be consulted immediately. Say nothing to anyone. This means, do not talk to friends, SNCO’s, OIC’s or even spouses or significant others.
All of these people may be able to be compelled to testify against the service member. Finally, keep in mind that if alcohol or drugs were involved during the alleged incident, this may mean that a service member’s memory is not accurate. Remain silent and seek legal help. Military lawyers cannot help until formal charges have been preferred. Service members need help before that. Consult a civilian lawyer with military justice experience and help can be obtained much earlier than that. Many civilian military lawyers will provide initial consultation without charging. Call and find out or risk your careers!
J. L. SIEGEL
Like I said before, I don't know anyone who would do/has done that...
An alarming national trend:
False Rape Allegations
Eugene J. Kanin, Ph.D.
Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
Purdue University
ABSTRACT:
With the cooperation of the police agency of a small metropolitan community, 45 consecutive, disposed, false rape allegations covering a 9 year period were studied. False rape allegations constitute 41% of the total forcible rape cases (109) reported during this period. These false allegations appear to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, seeking revenge, and obtaining sympathy and attention. False rape allegations are not the consequence of a gender-linked aberration, as frequently claimed, but reflect impulsive and desperate efforts to cope with personal and social stress situations. [False rape allegations are reported in similar numbers at college campuses; approximately 50% of rape charges are admitted to be false by the accuser.]
INTRODUCTION
[The author discusses the history of unfounded rape allegations, and how legitimate cases of rape were discounted until pressure from women’s groups caused them to be taken more seriously. He describes how the pendulum has now swung significantly the other way]
Currently, the two main identifiable adversaries involved in the false rape allegations controversy are the feminists and the police. The feminists are by far the most expressive and prominent on this issue. Some feminists take the position that the declaration of rape as false or unfounded largely means that the police do not believe the complainant; that is, the rape charges are real reflections of criminal assault, but the agents of the criminal justice system do not believe them (Brownmiller, 1975; Russell, 1984). Some feminists virtually deny the existence of false rape accusations and believe the concept itself constitutes discriminatory harassment toward women (see Grano, 1990). On the other hand, police are prone to say the reason for not believing some rape complainants resides in the fact that the rapes never occurred (Payton, 1967; Wilson, 1978; Jay, 1991). Medical Examiners lend support to this police position by emphasizing the ever-present possibility that rape complainants may be lying (Shill, 1969, 1971).
METHODS
This investigation is essentially a case study of one police agency in a small metropolitan area (population 70,000) in the Midwestern United States. This city was targeted for study because it offered an almost model laboratory for studying false rape allegations. First, its police agency is not inundated with serious felony cases and, therefore, has the freedom and the motivation to record and thoroughly pursue all rape complaints. In fact, agency policy forbids police officers to use their discretion in deciding whether to officially acknowledge a rape complaint, regardless how suspect that complaint may be. Second, the declaration of a false allegation follows a highly institutionalized procedure. The investigation of all rape complaints always involves a serious offer to polygraph the complainants and the suspects. Additionally, for a declaration of false charge to be made, the complainant must admit that no rape had occurred. She is the sole agent who can say that the rape charge is false. The police department will not declare a rape charge as false when the complainant, for whatever reason, fails to pursue the charge or cooperate on the case, regardless how much doubt the police may have regarding the validity of the charge.
In short, these cases are declared false only because the complainant admitted they are false. Furthermore, only one person is then empowered to enter into the records a formal declaration that the charge is false, the officer in charge of records. Last, it should be noted that this department does not confuse reported rape attempts with completed rapes. Thus, the rape complainants referred to in this paper are for completed forcible rapes only. The foregoing leaves us with a certain confidence that cases declared false by this police agency are indeed a reasonable- if not a minimal reflection of false rape allegations made to this agency, especially when one considers that a finding of false allegation is totally dependent upon the recantation of the rape charge.
We followed and investigated all false rape allegations from 1978 to 1987. A ranking police official notified us whenever a rape charge was declared false and provided us with the records of the case. In addition, the investigating officers provided any requested supplementary information so that we could be confident of the validity of the false rape allegation declarations.
FINDINGS
Regarding this study, 41% (45) of the total disposed rape cases (109) were officially declared false during this 9-year period, that is, by the complainant’s admission that no rape had occurred and the charge, therefore, was false. The incidence figure was variable from year to year and ranged from a low of 27% (3 out of 11 cases) to a high of 70% (7 out of 10 cases). The 9-year period suggests no trends, and no explanation has been made for the year-to-year fluctuation.
The study of these 45 cases of false rape allegations inexorably led to the conclusion that these false charges were able to serve three major functions for the complainants: providing an alibi, a means of gaining revenge, and a platform for seeking attention/sympathy. This tripartite model resulted from the complainants’ own verbalizations during recantation and does not constitute conjecture. Of course, we are not asserting that these functions are mutually exclusive or exhaustive; rather, these rape recantations focused on a single factor explanation. A possible objection to these recantations concerns their validity. Rae recantations could be the result of the complainants’ desire to avoid a ‘second assault at the hands of the police. Rather than proceed with the real charge of rape, the argument goes, these women withdrew their accusations to avoid the trauma of police investigation.
Several responses are possible to this type of criticism. First, with very few exceptions, these complainants were suspect at the time of the complaint or within a day or two after charging. These recantations did not follow prolonged periods of investigation and interrogation that would constitute anything approximating a second assault. Second, not one of the detectives believed that an incident of false recantation had occurred. They argued, rather convincingly, that in those cases where a suspect was identified and interrogated, the facts of the recantation dovetailed with the suspect’s own defense. Last, the policy of this police agency is to apply a statute regarding the false reporting of a felony. After the recant, the complainant is informed that she will be charged with filing a false complaint, punishable by a substantial fine and a jail sentence. In no case, has an effort been made on the part of the complainant to retract the recantation. Although we certainly do not deny the possibility of false recantations, no evidence supports such an interpretation for these cases.
RELATED FINDINGS
In addition to the foregoing, certain other findings and observations relevant to false allegations warrant comment. First, false allegations failed to include accusations of forced sexual acts other than penile-vaginal intercourse. Not one complainant mentions forced oral or anal sex. In contrast, these acts were included in approximately 25% of the rounded forcible rape complaints. Perhaps it was simply psychologically and socially more prudent for these women to minimize the humiliation of sexual victimization by not embroidering the event any more than necessary. This phenomenon has been observed previously (McDowell and Hibler, 1987).
One of the most haunting and serious implications of false rape allegations concerns the possibility of miscarried justice. We know that false convictions occur, but this study only tells us that these false accusers were weeded out during the very early stages of investigation. However encouraging this result may be, we cannot claim that false charging does not incur suffering for the accused. Merely to be a rape suspect, even for a day or two, translates into psychological and social trauma.
We may well be faced with the fact that the most efficient police departments report the higher incidence of false rape allegations. In view of these factors, perhaps the most prudent summary statement that is appropriate from these data is that false rape accusations are not uncommon. Since this effort is the first at a systematic, long-term, on-site investigation of false rape allegations from a single city, future studies in other cities, with comparable policies, must assess the representativeness of these findings.
ADDENDA
[The author talks about other studies of women on college campuses which show an approximately 50% rate of false rape reports, similar to the study above].
Quite unexpectedly then, we find that these university women, when filing a rape complaint, were as likely to file a false as a valid charge. Other reports from university police agencies support these findings (Jay, 1991). In both police agencies, the taking of the complaint and the follow-up investigation was the exclusive responsibility of a ranking female officer. Neither agency employed the polygraph and neither declared the complaint false without a recantation of the charge.
Sexual abuse of a child, nearly a blessing? Good gawd, man. WTF. Just WTF!
I have never met a healed person who regrets the abuse. I have met a lot of people who the pro's call healed who really are not, because the pro's goal is to get the patient to fully functional, claiming success once they do, and the patients believe that they are done because they have been told that they are done. These people often moan and groan about the their abuse and abuse in general.
jurisprudence
How Often Do Women Falsely Cry Rape?
The question the Hofstra disaster left dangling.
By Emily Bazelon and Rachael Larimore
Posted Thursday, Oct. 1, 2009, at 12:54 PM ET
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
How often do women falsely cry rape? Because of the 18-year-old Hofstra student who recanted after telling police that five men had tricked her into a bathroom and then gang raped her two weeks ago, that question has been flying around the Internet. As Cathy Young notes in Newsday, the answers often fall into one of two camps. "Many feminists argue that the problem of false accusations is so minuscule that to discuss it extensively is a harmful distraction from the far more serious problem of rape. On the other side are men's-rights activists, claiming that false accusations are as much of a scourge as rape itself."
But isn't the rate of false rape charges an empirical question, with a specific answer that isn't vulnerable to ideological twisting? Yes and no. There has been a burst of research on this subject. Some of it is careful, but much of it is questionable. While most of the good studies converge at a rate of about 8 percent to 10 percent for false rape charges, the literature isn't quite definitive enough to stamp out the far higher estimates. And even if we go by the lower numbers, there's the question of interpretation. If one in 10 charges of rape is made up, is that a dangerously high rate or an acceptably low one? To put this in perspective, if we use the Bureau of Justice Statistics that show about 200,000 rapes in 2008, we could be looking at as many as 20,000 false accusations.
Legal scholars used to be routinely suspicious of rape victims. "Surely the simplest, and perhaps the most important, reason not to permit conviction for rape on the uncorroborated word of the prosecutrix is that the word is very often false," a Yale Law Journal article opined in 1952, echoing a view voiced since at least the 17th century. These views remained mainstream into the 1970s, if not later. As Marcia Clark said yesterday recalling the 1977 rape charges against Roman Polanski, "Those were the days when folks still believed rape was 'easy to charge and hard to disprove.' " And that old adage couldn't have been further from the truth. Prosecutors well knew that unless the victim was Snow White, the case was toast."
You can see what Susan Brownmiller was up against when she wrote her path-breaking feminist tract, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, in 1975.
In her book, Brownmiller said that only 2 percent of rape allegations are false, citing findings by the female police in a New York City rape squad. The problem is that while this statistic has been widely repeated, with dutiful mentions of New York-based "research," no one has ever tracked down its source. This we learned from a comprehensive review of the literature on false rape charges published in the Cambridge Law Journal in 2006. The author, Philip Rumney, finds a couple of small studies that back up the 2 percent claim but isn't confident of their methodology.
Rumney's survey of the terrain is the best we found. He also takes aim at the findings on the other end of the spectrum—the research that purports to show that the rate of false allegations of rape is in the range of 40 percent, as well as the flawed (but often cited) work that makes a crazy high jump to as high as 90 percent. The 40 percent figure is usually attributed to a 1994 article by E.J. Kanin in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. Kanin looked at 109 reports of rape to police in one small Midwestern metropolitan area over nine years. His pool was small. The police he studied always offered the victim a polygraph—perhaps signaling they doubted her veracity. And Kanin himself "warns against generalising from his findings" and points to reasons for questioning them, as Rumney explains.
The hugely high 90 percent false rate is several degrees more suspect. The citation for it is usually a study in Scotland by police surgeon N.M. MacLean of only 34 rape complaints made from 1969-74. Complaints were labeled false if they were made after a delay. Or if the victim didn't look "disheveled" or upset or seriously injured. But those factors don't necessarily indicate that a rape charge is trumped up. When police use stereotypes about rape to sort real allegations from false ones, they can do victims a real disservice, as this model paper from the Oregon Attorney General's Sexual Assault Task Force explains. In a 1981 study of 16 reports that claimed the victim admitted to making it up in 14 of them, one case was disproved because the police decided the woman was too large for the alleged rapist to have taken off her "extremely tight undergarments" against her will. Need we say that this not the critical eye we want from the cops?
Rumney's smart debunkings leave us with a group of American, British, Canadian, and New Zealand studies that converge around a rate of 8 percent to 10 percent for false reports of rape. Not all of these studies are flawless, but together they're better than the rest of the lot. They include a massive 1997 report on sexual assault by the U.S. Department of Justice, which includes data from 16,000 local, county, and state law enforcement agencies. The DoJ found that "in 1995, 87% of recorded forcible rapes were completed crimes and the remainder were classified as attempts. Law enforcement agencies indicated that about 8% of forcible rapes reported to them were determined to be unfounded and were excluded from the count of crimes."
If 8 percent to 10 percent is about right for false reporting of rape, based on what we know so far, how should we think about that number? Rumney says he's not sure whether crying wolf is more or less likely over rape than over other crimes, because the comparative research is even less conclusive. So that's a question that appears to have no answer at the moment. (A 2001 Department of Justice report says that the rate of false reports is similar for other crimes, but it also gives the 2 percent figure without a source, so we're skeptical.)
What is clear, however, are two problems that are the flip side of the same coin. False charges of rape are an absolute nightmare for the men caught in their net. And the specter of made-up allegations is a real problem for law enforcement—which means they are also a problem for women who are telling the truth. Let's take the men first. We've heard from many of them in e-mails and comments since the Hofstra incident. Here is one story, equal parts heartbreaking and thoughtful:
My girlfriend was raped several years ago. I was falsely accused of rape less than a year ago. I contacted her (I had known her before her incident) because I was desperate for someone to talk to who would understand what I was going through. To my great relief, it turned out that we understood each other very well. From the initial stages of suicidal thoughts and not being able to function to the long-term fear, mistrust, and guilt that are facts of our lives, it turns out that her experience of being raped and mine of being falsely accused of rape were very similar. … One important difference, though, is that when she was violated, she received a great deal of help (medical, legal, psychological). Apart from family and friends, I was on my own. My legal and psychological problems had to be dealt with by me at a time when I couldn't eat, sleep, or think (except, of course, about killing myself).
On the law enforcement end, we heard from Steve Cullen, an Army attorney who's worked extensively as a prosecutor. He offered this cogent—and dire—explanation of the reverberations when women cry wolf about rape:
False reports have an incredibly corrosive impact on how sexual assault accusations are policed. Police treat sexual assault accusers badly—much worse than the lawyers do—much worse than the courtroom does. Forget what you see on "Law and Order SVU," the police end absolutely discourages victims from reporting. Why is this so? Because cops suspect just about every victim is another false accuser, because either he/she has personally dealt with such a problem, or has heard stories from his or her cop buddies to this effect (and yes, in my experience female cops can be even worse offenders). This police behavior is bad, and counterproductive—but it's real. Putting a real stigma on false reports might combat this a bit—and make it a little easier for actual victims at the police station.
False reports also have a disproportionate impact on juries. How I'd hate to be prosecuting a sexual assault right now. Often in sexual assault prosecutions there's no debate as to the sex, but everything falls on proving lack of consent—and can only be proven through a convincing and persuasive victim's testimony. Often, that victim's testimony has to overcome some less than ideal circumstances—she was drinking, people observed her flirting with the perpetrator etc. That's something she can own up to, and overcome on her own. What she can't do on her own is extinguish jury members' memory of reading of some spectacular false accusation case in the newspaper last month. Every false accusation that makes it into the news makes it that much harder for the real victims to receive justice.
If police and juries are influenced by false reports, especially high-profile instances of false charges, like the Duke lacrosse case or the Hofstra case, why wouldn't those reports influence victims, too? Up to 60 percent of rapes go unreported. The Hofstra story will only make more women wonder if the police will believe them.
This is sobering. As, of course, is the whole topic. We're left to draw the following conclusion: False allegations of rape aren't rampant. But they don't have to be to cause terrible trouble. This is a problem that a men's rights movement shouldn't trump up. And also one that feminists can't dismiss.
http://www.slate.com/id/2231012
Quote:I gather you dont agree with Friedrich Nietzsche who said "That which does not kill us makes us stronger"?Sexual abuse of a child, nearly a blessing? Good gawd, man. WTF. Just WTF!
I have never met a healed person who regrets the abuse.
I suspect that's because you're defining "a healed person" as "someone who does not regret the abuse."
A great deal of the time, a sexually abused child may be well into their 30s and 40s before they have dealt with their issue enough to stop feeling so traumatized
the Maryland Supreme Court reversed the Appeals Court and reinstated the boy's conviction.
When we were making love (mostly in the missionary position) I could tell that she enjoyed it, but at the same time it most reminded of her of the rape as opposed to other positions, and yet I could not really get her to be comfortable with other positions in which she was most in control
Again, you're simply trying to control the discussion by controlling the meaning of the word "healed".
