rape

Ethics Dunce and All-Time Most Unethical Group With “Ethics” In Its Name: People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

I'm SO glad my boyfriend joined PETA!

The People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals seems to be unable to grasp the simple concept that if you show yourself to be completely insensitive to matters of right and wrong involving human beings, nobody in their right mind is going care what you think constitutes the ethical treatment of animals. The latest in a long trail of proof: before the disturbing controversy over the pro-Chris Brown tweets had cooled and in the wake of the death Whitney Houston, a former of domestic abuse victim. PETA thought it was the perfect time to release a new ad celebrating the desirability of being able to harm women in the bedroom.

The 30 second spot shows a young woman without pants and wearing a neck brace as she painfully walks to her apartment. “This is Jessica,” narrator says. “She suffers from ‘BWVAKTBOOM,’ ‘Boyfriend Went Vegan and Knocked the Bottom Out of Me,’ a painful condition that occurs when boyfriends go vegan and can suddenly bring it like a tantric porn star.” Jessica reaches the apartment and smilingly get ready for another round of presumably rough sex.

There are many terms that accurately describe men who are so uninterested in the women they have intimate relations with that they cause them pain and take pride in it. Rapists. Abusers. Max Cady. Sadists. Misogynists. Ass-holes.

“Vegans” is not one of them.

“PETA members,” perhaps.

 

Judging McQueary: Child Rape Bystander Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

You have no excuses, Kal-El. But the rest...

“It was cowardly for a 6′4″ graduate assistant to witness the rape of a child by an older man and not only take no action to stop it but also not even call the police,” writes David French in the National Review.

He is, of course, referring to Mike McQueary, then a 28-year-old graduate student assistant coach for Joe Paterno at Penn State. Others have declared that it was an “absolute moral imperative” that McQueary physically intervene to stop the sexual assault.

It is interesting that the absolute moral imperative is nonetheless linked to qualifiers. French references McQueary’s size and the fact that the alleged assailant, Jerry Sandusky, is older. Some critics have focused on his gender. Still others, making the argument that McQueary failed to intervene because he didn’t take a child rape seriously enough, have suggested that he would have acted differently had Sandusky been beating, rather than raping the child. Of all the ethical debates surrounding the Penn State scandal, the question of how much scorn should be heaped on McQueary for not acting immediately to stop the rape in progress has been the most fascinating, and to my mind, the most disingenuous. It appears that every commentator, male or female, young or old, fat or fit, is convinced that would have charged in and battled the 57-year-old former wide-receiver, pummeling him into wet submission while the child escaped. Maybe. Studies and anecdotal evidence indicate that in fact, most people wouldn’t physically intervene. Perhaps sportswriters and op-ed writers are made of sterner stuff that the rest of the public.

Yes, that must be it.

None of this is to suggest that physically stopping a child rape in progress isn’t the right thing to do; it is. For his part, McQueary reputedly didn’t take any action to stop the assault,* which in order of effectiveness would be… Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Different Angle,” a college student and victim of child abuse, has, appropriately enough, a different angle on the Paterno/Penn State/ Sandusky scandal, and it provides useful and provocative perspective. I’ll let him have his say, as it is extraordinarily well argued, and save my comments for the end. I think he is compassionate, generous, thorough, thoughtful, and wrong. But first, here is his Comment of the Day on  “Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students.”

“As a current college student, prior victim of child molestation, and generally reasonable person, I feel inclined to give my two cents. Having read the grand jury report personally, I am shaken. Unless you are familiar with the shame and humiliation of a situation like this–even if you are familiar–the sheer quantity of these attacks… beyond words. Had any Penn State staff understood the thoughts running through this man’s mind, this comment would’ve started “As a current toddler…” Anyone who knows that the sexual abuse of children is occurring and acts so callously as to downplay it and sweep it under the rug has no place in modern society. That’s as nicely as I can put that.

“With as much emotion and sympathy as I harbor for the young men who’ve endured through this, it pains me to read the bickering and finger-pointing I’ve encountered in comment threads like this. And while it is normally in my nature to grab my trident for a healthy round of devil’s advocate with the popular and most often intelligent opinion, I cannot help but side with Joe Paterno in this matter. I’m about as far removed from sports as a sociable college male can get; I will not rally for a few chants of WE ARE… at the end of this post. If you’re going to scrutinize the choices he made in reference to the 2002 incident, be thorough enough to consider this: He wasn’t thinking about slandering Sandusky, he wasn’t concerned about his career or standing in the community. The decision of if/when/to whom this should be reported wasn’t calculated with pro’s and con’s. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

"Give me a C! Give me an H! Give me an I! Give me an L! Give me a D! Give me an M! ...."

The good news: the “Occupy” demonstrations are no longer the most irresponsible and offensive in the country. The bad:#1 is a rally in support of child molesting.

All right, that’s unfair; I apologize, Penn State students. What today’s raucous, banner-waiving, cheering throng of hundreds outside embattled football coach Joe Paterno’s house really was supporting was Paterno himself…now squarely identified as a man who allowed a probable child abuser to continue preying on young boys for years, because, we can only assume, he was more focused on winning football games than being a human being. That’s better. Not much better, though, because cheering Paterno now, at this moment, communicates approval of his choices, priorities and values, which said, in essence, “Let the rapes continue. Go Penn State!” Continue reading →

Ethics Quote Of The Day: Allahpundit

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

"Hide! The Vice-President says that if the jobs bill doesn't pass, we might be raped!!!"

“The very first question at the next Solyndra hearing should be, “How many rapes could Democrats have prevented by giving that $535 million to cops instead?”

—“Hot Air” blogger Allahpundit, marking the below-the-belt tactics of Vice President Joe Biden, who angrily suggested that Republicans who voted against the President’s jobs bill would be responsible for rapes and murders because of the resulting inadequate numbers of police.

Biden’s fear-mongering is beyond demogoguery, whatever the virtues of the President’s bill. States make budgetary decisions, and if a state’s priorities in funding didn’t include sufficient police personnel to prevent rapes and murders, the state is accountable, not Congressional Republicans (and Democrats) who don’t like the President’s bill. Meanwhile, the jobs bill seeks $5 billion for cops (and firefighters) and $30 billion for teachers. Is Obama willing to risk more rapes by not putting more money into law enforcement and less into teacher’s unions?  Continue reading →

Lingerie Football Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Does this sport condone rape? Or tickle fights?

I think professional lingerie football is a strange sport, to be sure. Attractive women dressed in bras, panties, helmets and shoulder pads play football before paying customers, almost all of them men. The players seem to play hard and many of them are excellent athletes. Is it sport? Is it sex? Is it spectacle?

Sondra Miller, a feminist and rape crisis counselor, believes that lingerie football increases the incidence of rape and violence against women, and writes that the proper ethical conduct is to end it:

“Don’t support the women’s lingerie football league. Don’t buy a ticket. Don’t watch it on TV. Don’t talk about it at the water cooler. Ignore it — or better yet — speak out against it.” Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: Is An Online Dating Service Ethically Obligated to Screen for Sex Offenders?

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Your perfect computer match!

Hollywood screenwriter and author Carole Markin sued the leading Internet matchmaker,Match.com, for not screening its applicants to eliminate sexual predators. She was raped by one that the online dating service had designated as her “perfect match.” This week the company settled the lawsuit  by promising to perform security background checks on all current and future Match.com members.

Markin, who is an Ethics Hero, said “If I save one woman from getting attacked, then I’m happy.” She waived monetary compensation and gave up all rights to pursue Match.com with further claims. Continue reading →

Hypocrite…or Lawyer?

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

"After we're done, darling, let's discuss your sexual harassment suit. I think you have a good case!"

This story probably will strike you as a bit odd.

Prosecutors have charged a 50-year-old lawyer, Robert Michael Hoffman of San Francisco, with rape after complaints from four women who told police he assaulted them when they answered his Craigslist ad for rough sex. The prosecutors say that he assaulted at least three of the four women  and engaged in rape, sexual battery, forced oral sex and one count of false imprisonment.

The odd part? Hoffman practices employment law , specializing in sexual harassment cases. Sexual harassment law is explicitly designed to ensure that employees are not exploited, debased or discriminated against because of their gender.Needless to say, rape, sexual battery and  forced oral sex would qualify as extreme sexual harassment. Continue reading →

The Warren Jeffs Sex Tapes and the Media’s Ethical Incoherence

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Warren Jeffs and his happy, happy wives---caught on tape!

Warren Jeffs, the Texas polygamist recently convicted of raping his child-wives, was sent to his richly-deserved prison sentence with the help of some horrific tape recordings of Jeffs proselytizing his young victims on their God-directed duty to satisfy his sexual needs, and more tapes that recorded his grunts and pants as he had sexual intercourse with them.

The Salt Lake Tribune requested and received copies of the tapes as well as other evidence in the trial. Then, according to an explanation in the paper, it editors had extensive discussions internally regarding the journalistic ethics of making the tapes generally available online. The paper’s decision:

“We opted to post only clips because we did not believe it would be ethical to make recordings of sexual assault, in action or imminent, easily available on the Web. Young girls can be heard in the tapes, and the jury’s decision was clear: These girls are a predator’s victims. In our role as journalists covering difficult stories, we vow to do our jobs while minimizing harm. In choosing not to provide these materials, we acted to minimize harm.

“What you will hear if you listen to the clips is Jeffs explaining and justifying his abuse of young girls in the name of religion. His “teaching” is helpful in understanding the case and the jury’s decision.”

This is hypocrisy of the highest order, and an abuse of a news organization’s function. Continue reading →

Strauss-Kahn and His Accuser, Victims of The Postman

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The accuser of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former IMF head who has been devastated by her sensational rape charge, now admits that parts of her original account of the incident and an earlier accusation of rape she made to seek asylum in the U.S. were false.

The Altantic’s Megan McArdle sums up the Ethics Train Wreck thusly:

“There are two possibilities here, neither of them good:

1) A woman with an unsavory past, who has done desperate things to get out of terrible economic conditions, was raped by a prominent figure, and he’s going to get away with it because of her history.
2) A serial cad had consensual sex with a chambermaid, and she attempted to destroy him with a false rape allegation for personal gain. And because of the presumption that women don’t lie about rape, she has succeeded in destroying him . . . though not so much in the personal gain part. To quote Ray Donovan, ‘Where do I go to get my reputation back?'” Continue reading →