Rape question

[DeRez]

Massachusetts:

someone very close to me was raped, she reported it to the city
police 2 months after it happend, she was afraid and did not
tell anyone.

It was a co-worker and they were out socially, he threatened her life.

i want to know, if anyone has had experience with date rape with
a length of time had passed. does this hurt the case?

 

[RedneckRoy]

I ain't got no experience with date rape cases. But this much I can tell ya, N E TIME a person waits, it hurts this case. If I were serving on the jury I would be very skeptical. Throughout the entire trial I'd be just a wondering why she waited so darned long to report it. Using the excuse of life being threatened would only make me more skeptical as to why she didn't report it then but is now reporting it 2 months later.

I no this ain't no legal advice but then again it ain't no lawyers that's serving on the jury. It's every day folk and I bet they would be asking the same question I am

 

[DeRez]

She was threatened, she waited because she felt guilty for what happened. She did not want her loved ones to know as well

 

[RedneckRoy]

That's all fine and dandy, I'm just telling ya how a juror may look at it. No matter how the prosecutor paints everything, jurors are going to be hard to convince.

Let me tell ya something from a mans point of view. I've seen women be very vindictive and other men have seen the same darn thing. That's one of the reasons I would be skeptical about the whole thing.

I ain't saying she was or was not raped. I'm just saying I think it's going to be pretty darn hard to prove it to a jury

 

[cbg]

Depends on how many women are on that jury. No woman I know would have any trouble understanding why it took so long to report it.

 

[curtisd]

just had to ask

are you saying that women have a natural insight to rape or that all the women you know have been raped,i don't mean to be flippant i am just trying to understand your comment and please don't sic IAAL on me

 

[cbg]

No, I am saying that most women would understand that someone who has been raped would be afraid to report it. Most women, if they have not been raped themselve, know someone who has. Many rapists tell their victims that if they report it, the rapist will return and do it again, and in the initial state of panic and shock, the victim believes them. What's more, more so than any other crime, rape victims are accused of "bringing it on themselves", told it never happened, disbelieved. Even if they do report it, if it ever gets to trial they are in effect raped all over again in the courtroom. That is why rape has such a low reporting rate and why women fear reporting it. As long as idiots like Roy tell them that it's all their own fault, why should they trust anyone else to believe them? This is an inherent understanding in women of our culture.

 

[curtisd]

cbg-thank you for enlightening me so would i be correct in saying that if men can't understand why women don't report a rape immediately because thats what men would do and if women don't report rape for the reasons you cited that the laws as they are now protect the rapist or that men's misunderstanding of the dynamics involved in rape protect the rapists?

 

[RedneckRoy]

"Idiots like Roy" why ain't that a hoot. This girl came in here with a very serious question and I gave a brutally honest answer. Ya say ya understand why a woman wouldn't report it because "Many rapists tell their victims that if they report it, the rapist will return and do it again" Let me tell ya something missy, those women that are afraid of them rapists returning are the ones that ain't got a clue who their rapist was. That ain't the case here, it was a co-worker. "Roy tell them that it's all their own fault" You ain't got much sense do ya woman? I ain't never said it was her fault. She wanted to know if it would hurt her case and I said it would. And if you are dumb enough to think it wouldn't hurt the case then marry me 'cause you're dumb enough to be this dumb rednecks wife. Time for ya to get yourself a reality check

 

[cbg]

My apologies if I misinterpreted your post, Roy, but that's how it came across to me.

Understand that I'm not saying you're wrong in what would happen. In fact, the fact that you're most likely right is part of the problem. However, my response to curtis was a generalized one, not specific to the poster. Curtis asked me specifically for some thoughts and I gave them to him. And just how do you know that the response I suggested only happens when the rapist and the victim are unknown to each other? Seems more logical to me that it's when they DO know each other that this would be a viable threat.

The problem is not with the law. The problem is with the attitude of the current culture.

"Boys will be boys."
"It's okay for me to force her because she really wanted it, she just didn't know it."
"What does she expect, wearing clothes like that and/or walking in that neighborhood?"
"Well, she must have asked for it because Jimmy/John/Mike/what have you, wouldn't have done something like that otherwise."
"So what? It was only sex, you're not dead, right?"

Bullcrap. Rape is an attack. It is never okay. It is a criminal offense. And to answer your question, curtis, we don't need to change the laws; we have plenty of laws. The problem will not be solved until we get rid of the attitudes above.

 

[RedneckRoy]

Ain't no harm done cbg. I be a little bit guilty on the way I read your post too.

You be right that the problem is people's attitude or perception. It don't bring me no pleasure to point this out to others. But Derez deserves to know what their friend might be up against.

 

[cbg]

Understood, Roy. This is a hot button for me because two of my closest female friends have both been raped. With both of them, it happened when they were teenagers; one of them to this day has never told anyone except me and one other person because she was so afraid of what he would do to her if she told. Yes, the person was known to her, and is still in her life. No, it was not a date rape.

Quite honestly, I don't see that it matters whether, in anyone's case, it was a date rape or someone unknown to them. Rape is rape. Either way, it is still someone forced to have sex against their will. Either way, it is a violation. And either way, society feels safer blaming the victim than fixing the root problem. Because after all, if it was the victim's fault, it couldn't possibly happen to ME, right?

Ain't so, boys and girls. Ain't so.

 

[RedneckRoy]

Let me tell ya a thing or two cbg. Now don't you be taking me as argumentative. That sure enough ain't going to be the case. Let me just go and tell ya about another side to the whole rape thang that happens out there.

Women ain't so special to the case when it comes down to getting raped. I have always heard about rape not being about sex but about control. There are too many teenage boys out there that get raped by this sickos. Ain't get reported much pretty much the same as women don't get report like it should. Ya got that stigmatism common attitude towards it that the victims just don't want to face the humiliation that goes along with it. You hit the nail on the head when ya say "rape is rape".

Now I gotta go in and put my two cents about "date rape". That be a pretty broad term. If a guy goes out with a girl and they both end up drunk and naked in the back of his pickup I don't consider that no rape becasue she was intoxicated. That be a two way street and he be drunk too. Flip that coin right on over and that girl says "NO" and that boy don't stop then that's some bonafide date rape and ya should tie his pecker in a knot hanging from a tree limb.

 

[cbg]

Roy, with regards to other forms of rape (teenage boys and so on) you are absolutely correct, but since we started out with the one form I continued on that same pattern. It was by no means intended to deny that fact that male rape or same sex rape exists. It does and I know that.

With your description of date rape you may or may not have a point under the circumstances you describe, but by no means all date rape falls under that description. And the fact remains that rightly or wrongly, several states automatically define it as rape if the woman is drunk, since she is considered incapable of making a choice. I have to admit I have never looked into whether this holds true when both parties are drunk.

 

[RedneckRoy]

CBG I didn't take it that you were discounting other forms of rape. Just wanted to point out how deep this crime runs.

When it comes to date rape I just think that term is too broad and there some things in there that are considered date rape when I don't think it should be. Such as the one ya pointed out being too drunk and incapable of making decisions. That should be a two way street but it ain't. Now if the girl gets slipped a mickey that's a whole other ball game and without a doubt that should be classified as rape