[I’ve edited this post, and the comments, to change one person’s actual name to the fake name “John Doe.” Read the comments to see why I did this. –Amp, 12/19/2010]
In another great example of college students being totally insensitive, a student at Central Connecticut State University decided that it would be funny to satirize rape. He titled his editorial “Rape Only Hurts If You Fight It.” He claims to be making the point that only sensational stories get headlines, so he decided to make his own sensation.
Well the students and staff didn’t find the editorial to be funny, and the writer John Doe was called to the carpet in a town hall forum at the school:
Doe took the podium before a hushed, tense audience — his first public appearance since the publication of a controversial article he wrote last week in the student newspaper describing rape as a “magical experience.”
The article, meant to be a satire of media sensationalism, had missed its mark, incurring the wrath of hundreds of students over its depiction of rape as a boon to civilization and to “ugly women” who otherwise would not be able to get men to have sex with them.
Many in the audience felt Doe had a lot to answer for, especially those who were familiar with some of the articles and comic strips he had previously written for the paper poking fun at sensitive topics such as abortion and affirmative action.
He had been up since 3 a.m. writing the speech. He hoped it would heal the wounds he had reopened and convince the audience that he was truly sorry — although later he would assert that the overwhelming response to his story proved his initial point.
Apparently, the condemnation of students did have some impact because the student was forced to resign, and it sounds like the paper’s editor was even getting a little reflective by the end of the forum. Here’s an excerpt that starts with Doe and ends with the editor of the paper.
“I apologize sincerely,” he said to the group of women who, in the days since the article was published, had publicly identified themselves as rape victims in a show of protest against the article and the paper.
One student, Nicki LaPorte, had won a rousing ovation from the audience after tearfully condemning the article earlier during the forum.
“I am not a victim of rape, I am a survivor of rape,” LaPorte said.
Several other students were also critical of the article, saying it crossed the boundaries of journalistic responsibility. Besides demanding Doe’s resignation, several students also called for the resignation of the paper’s editor, Mark Rowan, as well as the paper’s faculty advisors.
Students said that over the last year, the paper had become increasingly hostile to women and gays and other minority groups.
“Where are the advisors in all of this?” asked one student.
The controversy over the article prompted The Recorder’s editorial board to vote to remove Doe as the opinion editor over the weekend. Yet Doe will be allowed to continue writing on a limited basis, according to Rowan, who also said he has no plans to step down.
Doe and Rowan said they were both deeply moved by the dozens of letters they had received concerning the article over the last few days, especially those written by rape victims who described their attacks in harrowing detail.
“It’s definitely going to make me more sensitive to this issue,” said Rowan, a 21-year-old senior who hopes to pursue a career in journalism after he graduates. “Up until now, I had always seen the world from the narrow vantage point of a 21-year-old white male, but now I see that it needs to be broadened.”
Rowan said the paper intends to appoint a woman to replace Doe as opinion editor soon. The paper would then have an editorial board consisting of seven men and five women, he said.
Nevertheless, this case seems to be alarmingly similar to the blackface cases we have been seeing. Students claim that they didn’t know their behavior was offensive or inappropriate.
This also case strikes me as a real male privilege moment because rape is no joke to women especially for college women who have a very high rate of rape victimization. I think many men don’t realize how the threat of rape affects all women. We do things like get our keys ready well before we get into our cars. We check the backseat before we get into our car. We rarely go to parties alone. We stay in our homes late at night, and this applies to almost all women whether we have been sexually assaulted or not. The fear of rape is pervasive and unfortunately so normalized that many women (myself included) take it for granted. I suggest that men who want to learn about how rape affects women’s lives read this essay by Tim Beneke. It is an excerpt from his book Men on Rape: What They Have to Say About Sexual Violence. The article demonstrates how pervasive and powerful the fear of rape is.
I wish John Doe and Mark Rowan would have read the Beneke article. Maybe then they would realize why this essay wasn’t the least bit funny. Satire implies that you “get it.” (Didn’t I say this a couple days ago!) Mr. Doe and Mr. Rowan simply don’t get it. By his own admission, Mr. Rowan says he’s being viewing the world only through his young white male vantage point, and I suppose that’s what college is for getting students to see not only their vantage points but the vantage points of others. If Doe and Rowan could see the world through my eyes (and the eyes of billions of other women), would know that rape is no laughing matter; they would understand the paralysis and fear that rape causes for women, and they would have never written such an editorial.
Thanks to Carmen for the heads up on this!
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This article is offensive and in terrible taste. He knew it would be offensive. That’s why he did. He just didn’t think that people would take is seriously.
I wonder what impact South part et. al. have on the motivation to do this sort of thing. Were the writers truly only trying to be offensive and funny? Was this motivated by ignorance and privilege? Was this misogony and an urge to feel powerful by making women feel scared?
Or did he really just want to make point in the crudest way possible?
“Mr. Doe and Mr. Rowan simply don’t get it. By his own admission, Mr. Rowan says he’s being viewing the world only through his young white male vantage point, and I suppose that’s what college is for getting students to see not only their vantage points but the vantage points of others. If Doe and Rowan could see the world through my eyes (and the eyes of billions of other women), would know that rape is no laughing matter; they would understand the paralysis and fear that rape causes for women, and they would have never written such an editorial.”
-dead on- they don’t get it, namly that rape happens and so humor on that subject is liable to be interpreted as evil.
But this, “Up until now, I had always seen the world from the narrow vantage point of a 21-year-old white male, but now I see that it needs to be broadened.”
Frankly, I’m offended as 21 year old white male.
The fact he’d try to pawn his ignorance off on his status as a 21 year old white male is telling; he’s not willing to take responsibility for his actions, let alone, ‘expand’ his views.
Rachels,
I’m a bit suprised that you say
“By his own admission, Mr. Rowan says he’s being viewing the world only through his young white male vantage point”
I challenge that view as predjudiced.
Rachels, If you think its not predjudiced, I am open to your logic. I’m not offended considering the context.
When I first saw the title I thought this was going to be something from the Onion. Sadly, it’s not.
I watched a part of his “apology” last night on the news. I was wondering when you would comment Rachel :)
These days I keep thinking to myself stuff like : “I would be so ashamed to be his mother.” It’s just appalling and I can’t believe anyone thought it would be ok to publish in the first place. They are right to examine the editorial process. This should have been scraps on the newsroom floor.
Delurking to say, speaking of the Onion, this is how you write satire:
Candidate Turns To Focus Group For Position On Rape
In a strange way, I think what offends me the most is that the CCSU story is just not funny, or satirical at all.
The article by Beneke’s final paragraphs with quotes from men made me all the more scared of them as a gender. I am usually able to convince myself that men who think like this are a small minority and that most men are decent. Reading stuff like that really makes me wonder, are the decent ones the minority? Do most of them see beautiful women as enemies and foils for their vengeful fantasies?
That’s certainly not how my friends and I talk, and I was offended by the article, but Mr. Petronski assures me it was satire and was not intended to demean women. Mr. Petronski will be joining my campaign as the newspaper outreach communicator.
Sincerely, Mitt Romney
P.S.: he double super secret promises not to discuss rape any more in any future articles. He is moving out of the opinion section and will take a job with the entertainment section reviewing movies or something.
Help John Doe hear the words of you and everyone across our country. At http://www.askingfirst.com, Doe has agreed to receive e-mails from everyone he offended and he has promised he will read them. No one’s e-mail address is included when their comments are forwarded to him. Plus, he can only respond through our blog. This process is done to help insure he does not intentionally or accidentally hurt anymore people through this medium of communication.
Accoutability is a wonderful catalyst for change!!
Mike thanks for engaging in this dialogue with John Doe. I will repost your link.
Silenced like Amanda Marcotte.
We have an update from John Doe at http://www.askingfirst.com.
I am writing this in hopes that this will be read by someone who can help me.
I would like the article entitled “Apparently Rape is Big Old Joke and a “Magical Experience”” to be deleted.
I agree that the “satirical” article that was written by John Doe was and is not funny. I am asking you to PLEASE delete this blog and erase the hurtful memories that this article brings up. The issue is OVER and instead of causing people more anger and discomfort by having this articles lying around the internet, let’s put a DEAD topic to rest and DELETE this!! I see in this article that you were all about helping John Doe realize his mistake. It is now many years later and I can tell you myself that he has changed and he IS a different man now.
I am John Doe’s wife and it pains me to see my own husbands name on google so many times for such a stupid thing he did in his past. PLEASE delete this article and show us that a person changing for the better CAN be rewarded for his previous faults.
And if you needed any more reason to delete it, then I will also add that this blog is libelous.
PLEASE DELETE IT!!
Dear Crystal,
It’s not possible for me to discuss “Alas, a Blog” with someone threatening to sue me.
Until you withdraw that threat, any future communications from you will be forwarded to my lawyer to deal with. If I had a lawyer. Which I don’t. But I know a guy who owns a dog named “Perry,” and I fully intend to consult with Perry about all future emails from you. Perry is a good dog, and I’m sure will be very sympathetic to your problems.
Best wishes, Barry
Crystal, what’s the evidence that your husband has grown and changed? This article shows that, at the time, he didn’t learn a damned thing from his experience.
If there’s a sure fire way to draw attention to something you’d rather have fade away, comment on a nearly four year old blog post. It’s almost foolproof. Extra points for showing a total lack of knowledge of libel laws. A couple of bonus points, too, for the veiled threat of legal action.
All in all, an extremely successful post for fans of fail.
I actually have a lot of sympathy for Crystal’s position. I cringe when I reread some of the things I wrote years ago, and I think all of us are more than our worst moments.
But I’m really bugged by the libel threat Crystal made publicly on this thread. If she publicly renounces the threat, then I’ll consider her request.
I have sympathy for her position, too. It’s one of the great drawbacks of the internet – your history here doesn’t vanish.
However her strategy is wrong in nearly every facet and merely serves to draw attention to what she’d like to have disappear and garners no sympathy for her as a person.
Does she have to publicly renounce it to everyone she made it to? Since we are almost certainly not the only ones, give the generic language of the letter and the fact that we’re pretty far down the google search results for the ungentleman’s name.
This kind of pseudo-legal bullying worries me; not everyone is well-informed about libel (as Ms. Petroski demonstrates) and it might work to silence others.
Hello again,
I am here to take back my threat that this article is libelous. I think that some of you might have written something at some point in your lives that you wished were libelous but, in reality, are not.
Me saying that this article was in my, yes, generic post, was merely a last resort effort to try and get my post read and reviewed since it IS being posted on a 3 year old story.
To Snowe, almost 4 years have gone by since my husband published that article. I am not going to sit here and list out all the ways that he has changed, but I think that if you look back 4 years in your life, or anyone elses, that a lot changes in that amount of time. I think that the first sign that my husband has changed is just the fact that he is actually married. If he continued to be a complete satirically wrong asshole, like the article he wrote shows, then I don’t think he could have accomplished keeping a successful relationship going.
I am writing this out of love for my husband. If you had any clue who I was then you would immediately know that he MUST have changed in order for us to be together. All we honestly want is to have a normal and boring life. We want to have kids (yes, I will be having kids with this man) and have them look up to us (at least for the first 10 years of their life) and then, when their hormones start kicking in, they can start looking at us like idiots like every other pre-teen. I do NOT want our future kids to Google their fathers name and have to see the absolute stupidity that he did when he was a sophomore in College.
Now if you want to add onto my pain by posting something hurtful in response to this comment which has brought me to tears, then I don’t see how you are any better than my husband 4 years ago.
I take back what I said. The article he wrote isn’t libelous in anyway, I just WISH that it was. And I wish that someday, when our kids grow up, I won’t have to explain this stupidity to them.
Crystal, I think you should research the concept of libel, since you obviously don’t know what it means. Libel is a written, false, malicious statement. It is not in dispute that your husband wrote this article, and therefore publishing a blog post about the article cannot be considered libelous. It looks like you just threw that term around to try and intimidate people. That’s not very mature or intellectually honest.
I’m sorry that your husband’s actions as a college student are causing you pain, but it’s not realistic to try and erase what happened. The story was published on several news sites, and the Huffington Post and Slate are not going to take down stories just because it hurts your feelings.
Part of being an adult is taking responsibilities for your actions.We have to make up for our mistakes through new and better behavior, not by demanding that everyone forget about what we might have done. If/when you do have children together, you can use this story as teaching example of why you should be careful what you write.
Snowe,
I stated my reason for using libel in my previous comment. It was wrong, I know…and it mostly stemmed on my wish that it actually WAS libel. I didn’t know 4 year old stories were still so active, if I knew that, I wouldn’t have wrote it.
I know that the point of making mistakes is to learn from them, and he definitely has, he has been a new man for several years now. None of the boring and good things he has been doing is being posted online to take over his bad actions, because who cares about a guy doing normal and nice things?
Also, with the job market as bad as it is, I’m sure that these posts aren’t helping him land jobs. In that effect, these articles are essentially putting us in the poor house.
For someone who has changed completely, not being able to get a job because when employers Google his name they see all this madness is not a good way to be rewarded for your now good actions.
The more I write about this the more emotionally charged I get about this and the more I am afraid I am not making sense. So I think I will just stop while I’m slightly ahead.
I think she’d be wise to publicly renounce the libel talk on every site where she made it publicly, and by email with everyone she’s emailed, but that’s up to her. My concern is just this one site, and I have no wish to add to Crystal’s troubles. I’m going to change the name to “John Doe” throughout this post and the comments, so eventually this page will no longer come up in google search’s for Crystal’s husband’s name.
Crystal, I fear that Snowe is right, and that you’re taking on an impossible task. I think your time might be better spent thinking about how you’ll talk to your kids about this someday. At the very least, I’d start making annual family donations to RAIIN or some similar charity, so that ten years from now when you have “the discussion” you can point to that as an example of some real good John’s done to make up for his youthful error. (I was extremely proud when I discovered what a big supporter of Planned Parenthood my father was over the years.)
But that’s just my opinion, which I realize you haven’t even asked for. Good luck to you!
Snowe,
I stated my reason for using libel in my previous comment. It was wrong, I know…and it mostly stemmed on my wish that it actually WAS libel. I didn’t know 4 year old stories were still so active, if I knew that, I wouldn’t have wrote it.
I know that the point of making mistakes is to learn from them, and he definitely has, he has been a new man for several years now. None of the boring and good things he has been doing is being posted online to take over his bad actions, because who cares about a guy doing normal and nice things?
Also, with the job market as bad as it is, I’m sure that these posts aren’t helping him land jobs. In that effect, these articles are essentially putting us in the poor house.
For someone who has changed completely, not being able to get a job because when employers Google his name they see all this madness is not a good way to be rewarded for your now good actions.
The more I write about this the more emotionally charged I get about this and the more I am afraid I am not making sense. So I think I will just stop while I’m slightly ahead.
Thank you Ampersand.
Crystal, I think your pain at this is probably something better handled by contacting a therapist and working through your feelings on this. There’s no shame it in. It doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you. This has to be an upsetting thing for anyone, and the proper person to work out your hurt with should be a professional who is trained for it.
He could always try to trump the google search for the *bad* article he wrote by doing some activism. He could write a post about how much he’s changed and how he learned from the experience and see if this blog, or other feminist blogs, would post and promote it.
This was the first thought that came to my mind when I read Crystal’s comment.
I had the same thought as Mandolin and Richard. Writing “what I learned from my idiotic misogynistic writing that went viral, and how I’ve put my efforts into making the world safer from rape” would be a great way to demonstrate a genuine change of heart, get more current info on Google for employers to find, and provide a possible learning opportunity for others who might make the same mistakes.
And would be an excellent role model for future children of “how to screw up and take responsibility for it.”
It’s a shame how much this exchange is reminding me of things *actual rapists* have said, when evidence of their past crimes and misdeeds continue to haunt them, even if it’s just through social shaming/shunning. Not to mention abusers, addicts, etc. etc.