Current Events > Social worker to me: our justice system takes fraud more seriously than rape

(+) Yeah! (+)

Thoughts?

This friend of mine deals with the worst criminals in society.


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Both are treated like very little when the person is rich and powerful.
I'm not especially familiar with how fraud is dealt with, though I'd wonder her reasoning as to how she came to that conclusion.

I mean, if a man or woman commits fraud, then it's usually taken seriously true. Both can get off relatively easy if influential.

Whereas a woman can rape and even have the person she rsped pay child support.
A man can have it treated non seriously if he has influence of some sort, same as fraud.

So I mean, I guess she's right in a way. It's pretty screwed up. I'm assuming her reasoning was different however?

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I can believe that.
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The legal system and police exist to protect the property of the wealthy from the poor.

Violent crime, rape etc. are only dealt with so the people remain calm and the money doesnt get disrupted.

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Follow up comment:

Me: is it because fraud is easier to prove?
Her: No it's not about conviction rates it's about what happens once you are convicted
Me: And you would get longer for conspiring to rob a jewelry shop than for raping someone.

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Of course it is. The men in power who make the rules have more to lose financially if defrauded, and more risk to their position if rape were taken seriously.

Plagiarism gets you kicked out of college more reliably, instantaneously and permanently than rape.

Bernie Madoff is serving more prison time than Bill Cosby, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, Aziz Ansari, Harvey Weinstein, Larry Nassar, basically any priest of any major-news faith sex ring and many others have ever even been threatened with.

The broad culture pays pretty decent lipservice to the concept of rape, but by putting it into the unique, cartoonish hell level of Utmost Bad, it ends up insulated and harder to actually conceptualize. I find people think of rape as so terrible that its commission has to be something else than rape because if it were rape, that'd be the worst thing there is, which is terrible, so we need to be sure it's not something else first, because rape is terrible. Fraud is an easy target of righteousness and tangible justice that is bad, but it's not the-worst-thing-that-is, so it's more readily understood and dealt with. And while anyone can be raped, women take the brunt of instances, while it remains an icky hypothetical at worst for most men. Women are taught their whole lives that their rape is right around the corner if they let their guard down and that's used as a strong justification to curtail their freedom of movement and association, even if nothing ever happens to them. (In many ways, rape is treated like a stage of life, the same way breast cancer 'awareness' campaigns treat it as just something that happens to women of a certain age.)

The helplessness of being a fraud victim is the type of hazy fear that people have about mugging or fire: fears you can plan for, but the likelihood of them happening can be mitigated and, if the worst happens, there are agencies that can and must help.

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This is pretty low resolution, but while I agree that raping someone is one of the worst things you can do to someone, it's very difficult for the justice system to prove. People who are proven to rape especially repeatedly or systematically are locked up a long time.

Depends what kind of fraud, too. White collar criminals get off smooth sailing compared to someone who is caught burglarizing.

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

Of course it is. The men in power who make the rules have more to lose financially if defrauded, and more risk to their position if rape were taken seriously.

Plagiarism gets you kicked out of college more reliably, instantaneously and permanently than rape.

Bernie Madoff is serving more prison time than Bill Cosby, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, Aziz Ansari, Harvey Weinstein, Larry Nassar, basically any priest of any major-news faith sex ring and many others have ever even been threatened with.

The broad culture pays pretty decent lipservice to the concept of rape, but by putting it into the unique, cartoonish hell level of Utmost Bad, it ends up insulated and harder to actually conceptualize. I find people think of rape as so terrible that its commission has to be something else than rape because if it were rape, that'd be the worst thing there is, which is terrible, so we need to be sure it's not something else first, because rape is terrible. Fraud is an easy target of righteousness and tangible justice that is bad, but it's not the-worst-thing-that-is, so it's more readily understood and dealt with. And while anyone can be raped, women take the brunt of instances, while it remains an icky hypothetical at worst for most men. Women are taught their whole lives that their rape is right around the corner if they let their guard down and that's used as a strong justification to curtail their freedom of movement and association, even if nothing ever happens to them. (In many ways, rape is treated like a stage of life, the same way breast cancer 'awareness' campaigns treat it as just something that happens to women of a certain age.)

The helplessness of being a fraud victim is the type of hazy fear that people have about mugging or fire: fears you can plan for, but the likelihood of them happening can be mitigated and, if the worst happens, there are agencies that can and must help.

Im sorry what prison type does Aziz Ansari deserve for pressuring a girl to have sex after getting a blowjob from her?

CruelBuffalo posted...

Im sorry what prison type does Aziz Ansari deserve for pressuring a girl to have sex after getting a blowjob from her?

Don't be coy; you aren't sorry. He shoved his fingers down her throat in an attempt to be/continue sexiness. Shoving your fingers down someone's throat would be assault in any other situation and, since it was during and because of sex, that was sexual assault. There's no reason for it to have been treated as anything but. All the woman did was write a bloglet about it, without even calling for any legal repercussions, and people were calling on her to be imprisoned for "making false rape claims."

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She works in the UK right? I can definitely see that.

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

Don't be coy; you aren't sorry. He shoved his fingers down her throat in an attempt to be/continue sexiness. Shoving your fingers down someone's throat would be assault in any other situation and, since it was during and because of sex, that was sexual assault. There's no reason for it to have been treated as anything but. All the woman did was write a bloglet about it, without even calling for any legal repercussions, and people were calling on her to be imprisoned for "making false rape claims."

you mean after he was eating her out and used her mouth to wet his fingers when they were finger fucking. That situation right?

CruelBuffalo posted...

you mean after he was eating her out and used her mouth to wet his fingers when they were finger fucking. That situation right?

You don't need to shove your fingers down someone's throat to make your fingers wet. I've been on both sides of hand-moistening deviancy and it's never come close to that.

How do you feel about fraud?

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

You don't need to shove your fingers down someone's throat to make your fingers wet. I've been on both sides of hand-moistening deviancy and it's never come close to that.

How do you feel about fraud?

Ive had fingers shoved down my throat and I liked it . In the blog I just re-read it says he move his fingers in a vshape...so no I dont think that went down her throat...
not everyone will or does and she can easily stop the sex encounter with

I am not going to have sex with you
Do not put fingers in my mouth
I dont want to touch your dick

This was not a case of drugs or forcibly holding a person down against their orders

Fraud is easier to prove, but it is definitely not punished like rape. Naming multiple million dollar cases are crazy examples, but the same goes for horrific violent rapes.

She demurred, pushed him away, went limp and asked to slow things down repeatedly, including saying explicitly she didnt want to feel forced. No one ever said he was forcing her down or drugging her. It was still sexual assault and an obvious case of bowling over another person's comfort and the signals one ought to be keyed into during sex.

Your balls to the wall desperate attitude is exactly what TC's friend was talking about and me in my Utmost Bad example: you need so badly for this to be something other than violence of a sexual nature. And, again, he was never even threatened with jail time.

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

She demurred, pushed him away, went limp and asked to slow things down repeatedly, including saying explicitly she didnt want to feel forced. No one ever said he was forcing her down or drugging her. It was still sexual assault and an obvious case of bowling over another person's comfort and the signals one ought to be keyed into during sex.

Your balls to the wall desperate attitude is exactly what TC's friend was talking about and me in my Utmost Bad example: you need so badly for this to be something other than violence of a sexual nature. And, again, he was never even threatened with jail time.

To me it seems kind of pointless to try to litigate unless you're going to say what you think the punishment for this should have been iyo, whether or not any legal action was actually in the cards

comparing Aziz Ansari to child molesters seems obfuscate things by playing into the very thing you're saying contributes to rape being taken less seriously.

I mean, I'm kind of drawing an implication here that you do want to make a distinction (i.e., you're saying sexual assault instead of rape now) but your rhetoric is still defensive of your original point despite the concession

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Balrog0 posted...

To me it seems kind of pointless to try to litigate unless you're going to say what you think the punishment for this should have been iyo, whether or not any legal action was actually in the cards

comparing Aziz Ansari to child molesters seems obfuscate things by playing into the very thing you're saying contributes to rape being taken less seriously.

I mean, I'm kind of drawing an implication here that you do want to make a distinction (i.e., you're saying sexual assault instead of rape now) but your rhetoric is still defensive of your original point despite the concession

Balrog0 posted...

To me it seems kind of pointless to try to litigate unless you're going to say what you think the punishment for this should have been iyo, whether or not any legal action was actually in the cards

comparing Aziz Ansari to child molesters seems obfuscate things by playing into the very thing you're saying contributes to rape being taken less seriously.

I mean, I'm kind of drawing an implication here that you do want to make a distinction (i.e., you're saying sexual assault instead of rape now) but your rhetoric is still defensive of your original point despite the concession

I am not 'litigating' anything and nor was the woman who talked about the assault. I was not 'comparing' him to other rapists, I was comparing all of them to the sentence Madoff got. Depending on the sexual assault laws in that state, it should have been tried under those normal statues if she chose to brought charges forward. It's really not as inscrutable as you insist. I would have respected your accusation of conflation sexual assault and rape (which is a type of sexual assault) more seriously if you weren't pulling it from the air desperately after having repeatedly diminished the woman's account through scare quotes, saying that you liked the self-same sex stuff and continually stating that it wasn't a big deal/couldn't possibly be worthy of punishment.

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

I am not 'litigating' anything and nor was the woman who talked about the assault

yeah but the person you're responding to asked you to

VanananaHeyHey posted...

I was not 'comparing' him to other rapists, I was comparing all of them to the sentence Madoff got.

The implication here is pretty obvious:

Plagiarism gets you kicked out of college more reliably, instantaneously and permanently than rape.

Bernie Madoff is serving more prison time than Bill Cosby, Prince Andrew, Donald Trump, Aziz Ansari, Harvey Weinstein, Larry Nassar, basically any priest of any major-news faith sex ring and many others have ever even been threatened with.

It's definitely talking about rape specifically and comparing it to other types of crime. It's w/e though and ultimately not meaningful as long as you're making the distinction now.

VanananaHeyHey posted...

Depending on the sexual assault laws in that state, it should have been tried under those normal statues if she chose to brought charges forward. It's really not as inscrutable as you insist.

Who said it was inscrutable? No one is asking you about the laws as they stand, you were asked for your opinion on the matter. That's the part thats inscrutable, because you still haven't shared that.

VanananaHeyHey posted...

I would have respected your accusation of conflation sexual assault and rape (which is a type of sexual assault) more seriously if you weren't pulling it from the air desperately after having repeatedly diminished the woman's account through scare quotes, saying that you liked the self-same sex stuff and continually stating that it wasn't a big deal/couldn't possibly be worthy of punishment.

Huh? that was my first post

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Yup.

Sex crimes are severely underpunished in all regards for near anyone involved in them. If they are even taken seriously to begin with.

Women are often shamed and told they were "asking for it" and men are told to "stop being a pussy and GET some pussy" if they get sexually assaulted.

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That's a little vague

I think fraud accusations more seriously than rape accusations makes more sense
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KiwiTerraRizing posted...

The legal system and police exist to protect the property of the wealthy from the poor.

this

regardless of which western country you live in
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Yeah, you were diminishing the notion of the assault being one at all through your scare quotes in the first post, but you didn't get haughty and semantic until later when I held firm. And, as I said, rape is a type of sexual assault. You picked one name on a list to not only stan for, but to derail the topic of whether rape is treated less seriously than fraud, going all-in on this panic that it mustn't have been that bad.

I maintain that shoving your fingers down someone's throat, even in a non-sexual context (not sure why sexual context should mitigate it tho, brah) is worse than plagiarism. And, frankly, I think it's worse than fraud. If you want me to hand down a sentence as a big, bad radfem judge, he'd get whatever the penalty in that state would be for shoving your fingers down the throat of someone. As an assault, that could be probably a month of local jail or less. If it were sexual assault, it would probably be a warning and maybe some community service, because of the desire of people to downplay stuff like that (case in point).

All of those men, from the innocent lamb Aziz to America's Poppa Cosby, have gotten off easier than Madoff. That was the point.

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KiwiTerraRizing posted...

The legal system and police exist to protect the property of the wealthy from the poor.

No. They exist for law and order and to protect the public. Get your damned tinfoil off your head.


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VanananaHeyHey posted...

Yeah, you were diminishing the notion of the assault being one at all through your scare quotes in the first post, but you didn't get haughty and semantic until later when I held firm.

I'm a different person

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CE is completely delusional

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Balrog0 posted...

I'm a different person

That's a statement I can get behind the truth of. My bad.

It also means that two people are stanning Ansari instead of discussing the actual point of the topic and deliberately missing the point of my post.

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Duncanwii posted...

No. They exist for law and order and to protect the public. Get your damned tinfoil off your head.

He's right, you're wrong duncan.

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To broaden the scope of this terribly sloppy discussion, people get away with a lot more than what either Madoff or Ansari did. It's a strange comparison

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VanananaHeyHey posted...

It also means that two people are stanning Ansari instead of discussing the actual point of the topic and deliberately missing the point of my post.

I'm not stanning anyone and if you read my post without your preconceived bias based on your misunderstanding of the source of the words I think you'd realize that

as a third party to that conversation, it just kind of struck me that your argument with him was deflating your original point, in that your responses seem to want us to think that what occurred in all of those cases was an 'utmost bad thing' even though your original point was to say that rape isn't an utmost bad thing and that couching it in those terms is unhelpful to actually doing something actionable about rape

But also, you think some cases of sexual assault are appropriately handled as misdemeanors with pretty light sentences. Even though that is what you're saying, from what I can tell to your answer to the question of how it should have been punished, the societal pressure to consider rape and/or sexual assault as Utmost Bad Things is strong, and makes it difficult to say that

let me know if I missed something, I definitely could have


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Rape tends to be a he said she said type of situation unless they go immediately to report it. Physical evidence aside, like in the case where she's physically attacked and there's bruises documented.

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One is easier to prove for sure, fraud is like, you either did it or you didn't, and if they're pressing charges for it, then you most likely did it.

Rape is a complex issue and it's not as black and white as "He dragged me behind a alley and raped me"

You have to gather evidence, convince a jury that he/she did it beyond reasonable doubt, prove that it was non-consensual, and it is insanely difficult to gather damning evidence unless it was a violent rape. You need DNA, first-hand accounts fall into "he-said, she-said" and those usually turn into who has the better lawyer. DNA isn't perfect either but it still helps you put a case together

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