Not much more can be said at this point, other than so many are so certain.

Reminds me of Iraq …

I think we need to let the system work for a couple more weeks to get a better idea of what the facts are (vs. the spin) before we discount anything.

Men’s News Daily is blaming the “rape hoax” (that’s what they’re calling it now) on “predatory feminism.” No wonder the trolls are itchy.

Ditto that.

Ginmar said: “If the woman had merely stated she was beaten and robbed, these guys would be in jail already. ”

SO TRUE.

Jesus, this thread is depressing. *sigh*

But since you want to talk Duke - a question…what “wall of silence”? There have been no complaints by the DA or the police about a lack of cooperation. Whatsoever.

And you “know” this how?

I work for Duke and I live seven blocks from the crime scene. Everyone that I have met — students, professors, community members, … hell the baggers at Whole Foods — are completely critical of the “wall of silence” that these boys present. So is, FTR, the president of the university.

Sending your son overseas or away from Durham is indeed a wall of silence.

I’m saying that when it comes to he said/she said cases, there are some “shes” out there that have a tougher row to hoe because life choices they’ve made expose their poor character.

These boys **bought** a woman. I find that to be the poorest of poor character. In addition, they felt some right to use her body for their sexual release becaue they paid for it. There is no character there. Just baseness and a rampant willingness to confuse the act of dancing with the humanity of this woman.

In other newsy bits from those same shows… The DA referred to “the DNA tests that we have gotten so far,” and also to forthcoming DNA tests.

So, it looks like we’ll all just have to wait for further developments before calling Mary Doe a whore and a liar.

On what values have you based that judgment? What factors have made you decide that being an escort is worse than hiring one?

Lauren, moderation of a busy board isn’t always as easy or obvious from the point of view of the moderator, as blog-readers tend to assume. I think you probably know that as well as I do. Life gets in the way, and one slips up now and again. One reason these threads have been worse than most is that they’ve been absolutely flooded with people I’m turning away. You see the couple I let through but not the dozens I haven’t let through.
In retrospect, maybe I should have banned John and Teamrican right away, rather than taking their words that they were feminists. But hindsight is 20-20, and I’d rather err on the side of giving people a chance.

Actually Lauren mentioning about moderation brought up an interesting idea. Amp have you ever thought of creating a list of bullet points in terms of beliefs that a person must adhere to (or a certain number must adhere) to in order to be consider feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly by your own or website definition. For example, lets take the current rape case, would you say in general is there any sort of thing that you actually consider feminism that would actually state that a sex worker should not be given the same level of creditability compared to normal people in a trial. In other words would consider you considered the following statement (or something along it line) as to be fundamentally apart of your definition as feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly…

To be considered feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly you must believe that people (both female, male, and transgender) who work in the sex industry, such as prostitutes, strippers, and porn stars, must have the right to a fair trial and be given the same creditability as a normal citizen, and this right especially applies to sex workers who are an accuser in a rape trial.

After you right up the list you can refer it to people so that they can see, if they fall under the definition or not.

BOB ASHLEY: Well, I think the next shoe is probably going to be some result of a second test of the DNA, which the district attorney first mentioned — we reported first this morning, which the district attorney confirmed during their forum at North Carolina Central today.

We’ll see what happens with that. He hinted, although it’s unclear whether he said with absolute certainty, that they may have the identification of at least one suspect.

I think as those pictures emerge, if there is a second DNA report, if there is in fact the identification of one or more suspects, we’ll just have to wait and see what the district attorney does at this point.

A small point - drunken, boorish behavior IS in fact significantly less damning to a person’s character than working as an “escort” after mothering two out-of-wedlock children by different fathers, and stealing a car and leading police on a high speed chase while intoxicated. As this accuser reportedly did.

John, did you mean to write, “boorish behavior IS, in my opinion, … “? My opinion is the opposite of yours, though I recognize mine just that: an opinion about credibility. In my experience, people who urinate in public (as has been alleged) tend to to have boundary issues, to think they own the world and all that is in it. They also tend to be, let’s just say, aggressive and grabby. Just my experience, based on having been around borish, aggressive grabby guys.

Based on my opinion, I’ve always done my best to avoid being alone with large boorish men– and the reasons are both that I don’t like theirecompany and I wanted to protect my 130 lb self from physical harm.

If I were on a jury, I would take my experiences with me and rely on them when assessing credibility. Evidently you would take yours. I guess that’s one purpose of having 12 people on a jury.

Although totally differ on your assessment of credibility, I would like to say, I’ve drawn no conclusions about this case. I’m just following the story as it unfolds. Given my personality, the physical evidence and expert testimony would weigh more heavily with me than the he said/ she said testimony, so individual credibility may not be a heavy issue for me.

Lack of DNA evidence is a problem for me not because I think it impugns the dancer’s story, but because it means we don’t know which 3 of the 30 men at the party might be the rapists. Evidently, the dancer can’t say for sure. That uncertaintly is going to introduce a reaonable doubt in the case against any individual. It also means failure to convict will not be exoneration.

Being an escort is not a mental illness, like necrophilia, nor does it indicate a depraved indifference to pain and harm caused to others, like bombing buildings and kicking dogs. Someone with a depraved indifference to human pain would clearly hesitate less to falsely accuse someone of a crime than a normal person, so yes, I would find those things blows to credibility.

Hi Ampersand, you have actually, perhaps inadvertently, brought and interesting point. I personally would not considered an escort to have less creditability that the average person based upon her job especially given my opinion of creditability I wrote in comment 73. The thing is in case of mental illness I wonder what people’s opinion would be in terms of it affecting a person’s creditability. The reason why I am particularly interested in this is that I am myself suffer from mental illness in terms of having bipolar (manic-depressive) disease. Now, I have only had one episode of mania, during which I was aware of my surroundings, but I was acting somewhat irrationally based on deluded and grandiose thoughts and sometimes during my mania episode I was occasionally hearing voices (i.e. having auditory hallucinations). Now, I believe compared to most bipolar people my mental illness is mild; however, I wonder how much of a creditability issue would people assign to my mental illness (I suppose it would vary depending if I was going through mania or not)

In retrospect, maybe I should have banned John and Teamrican right away, rather than taking their words that they were feminists. But hindsight is 20-20, and I’d rather err on the side of giving people a chance.

Citation please.

John, you just don’t get it. Your judgement of the morals of a person have nothing to do with that person’s credibility. Your ranking of strippers as less credible than privileged young white men with long histories of intimidation, violence and law breaking is hardly a feminist position. Just because you claim to be feminist doesn’t make you so. The contradictions in your self-proclaimed feminism and the vile misogyny that you have spouted in this thread have been pointed out by a whole bunch of people (many of them women). Have you even thought, “Hey, perhaps there is something to what they’re saying. I should think about this & perhaps ask questions for clarification?” No. Rather, you have tried to shout over them.

Frankly, I find your moral values to be questionable and your application of those values to others to be repugnant. alsis has it right in her last sentence.

Your hateful victim blaming/looking for any way to hold up the virtue of a group of extremely priviliged young men is victim blaming in its classic, ugly glory.

Tawana Brawley? Dude, do you know anything about the Tawana Brawley case? She was not a prostitute. Not even a stripper. She is not the one who concocted the story, but she was intimidated into going along with it. As somebody who grew up in the area and was well acquainted with people involved in the case, I feel confident in saying what the fuck are you talking about?

Charles, I was having a broader discussion about prostitutes and credibility (which I was not linking to the Duke case).

All I can say to this is, what utter bullshit! You have been making a thinly veiled “hypothetical” in order to blame the victim throughout your comments here.

Just for the nitwits out there - I’m not equating prostitution, or the woman in this case to any of the above. Just making an intellectual point.

Oh. If you say so then, sure, I’ll believe that your thinly veiled victim blaming is “just an intellectual point.”

How about necrophilia? How about blowing up buildings for political purposes? How about kicking dogs?

None of the above have anything to do with truth-telling. But they speak to a person’s CHARACTER. And character and credibility go hand in hand.

Do you even know what credibility means? If you do, then you realize that your last paragraph makes no sense at all.

Given that I do know what credibility means, I will say that none of the activities you mention lessens credibility. With the possible exception of those people’s assertions that, although they had done it in the past, in this case they are innocent. Which is why past crimes are not easily admissable.

I can’t believe I actually had to write that.

Hiring a stripper (the pre-text she was hired under in this case) is worse than actually BEING an escort (which she also worked as - though not in this case)?

And there goes the last shred of your credibility as a “feminist.” If you had the vaguest feminist inklings, even if you lacked all knowledge of basic feminist tenets, I think you might ask why feminists feel this way. You might even consider the explanation (which you were given) to have some merit. But, noooooooo. You know so much better having researched sex work so much more than the people who you are ignoring.

You need to do some research into what feminism is, what it does and the positions that it holds before declaring yourself to be a feminist. When credible feminists tell you that you are wrong, you might want to look into it some, is what I’m saying.

This thread is open to feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly posters only. If you don’t think you fall into Amp’s definition of “feminist, pro-feminist and feminist-friendly,” and you wish to make a comment, you may do so at the cross-post on Creative Destruction.

only works when you enforce it. You’ve been rather good about this in previous threads. Why the lack now?

Don’t you get how often the rest of us are laughing at you, and locking are doors when you start this garbage?

Kell, I think you’re making a much better case than John, but please try to respect the moderation policies here. Thanks.

The lack of DNA is VERY damning.

Only to those wishing to damn beforehand. Or perhaps those buying into the end all be all fallacy of DNA evidence. Lack of matching DNA evidence to someone is very similar to lack of an identifying photo. It may be a relevant piece of the puzzle, but present or missing, one may very well be able to see the picture the puzzle makes.

To go back to the DNA evidence a la the defense, I find most interesting the claim that the results indicate that Mary Doe did not have intercourse that night, nor the days preceding. I actually believe this statement because unless there was evidence in the report to indicate sexual activity with one of the defendants, evidence of sex would be beneficial for the defenses’ case. I think this is interesting because it conflicts with the rape nurse’s report. This tells me that it is very possible for sex to leave no DNA evidence, contrary to the defense’s claim.

In short, lack of DNA evidence is not exonerating. Lack of DNA evidence is simply lack of incrimination at one point.

Jake Squid -
How about necrophilia? How about blowing up buildings for political purposes? How about kicking dogs?

None of the above have anything to do with truth-telling. But they speak to a person’s CHARACTER. And character and credibility go hand in hand.

Just for the nitwits out there - I’m not equating prostitution, or the woman in this case to any of the above. Just making an intellectual point.

Being an escort is not a mental illness, like necrophilia, nor does it indicate a depraved indifference to pain and harm caused to others, like bombing buildings and kicking dogs. Someone with a depraved indifference to human pain would clearly hesitate less to falsely accuse someone of a crime than a normal person, so yes, I would find those things blows to credibility.

But I’m still waiting for a reason why being an escort logically means one is more likely to make a false accusation. I just don’t see it, and an appeal to morality doesn’t explain it.

By the way, the “nitwits” line was way out of line. So was the line about praying for rape (and that was totally unsupported by anything Kell said - not to mention one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever seen said about another poster in this forum). That other people aren’t respecting the forum’s moderation rules doesn’t excuse you escalating to such a large degree.

I think you’ve had a chance to state your case here, and everyone reading here has a fair chance to consider your case. But saying that people who disagree with you are praying for rape seems more like an extremist anti-feminist cliche than like something a feminist would say. I think you should stop posting on “Alas.”