Discussion for article #235057
After her involvement in the Duke Lacrosse scandal, Marcotte should be permanently barred from writing about rape accusations. I’m not sure we ever got a mea culpa from her on her vitriolic attacks against critics. Her speaking of “culture warriors sharpening knives” – the irony is too much to bear.
In January 2007, Marcotte wrote controversial statements about the Duke lacrosse case, including that people who defended the accused were “rape-loving scum”. A few months before all charges were dropped in the case, on a blog post titled “Stuck at the airport again…” Marcotte wrote in part, “Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.” The post attracted criticism, including from The New York Times. Cathy Young described Marcotte as a leader of a “cyber-lynch mob,” writing that, “in Marcotte’s eyes, the real crime of the independent feminists is helping preserve the idea that the presumption of innocence applies even in cases of rape and sexual assault.” Marcotte later deleted the post.
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My only hope was that the story was a lie, meaning this woman did not suffer a horribly violent rape and assault.
You who are disappointed that it didn’t occur will just have to live with yourselves.
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Not only did Jackie not hand a specific man over to the authorities, but the report suggests that “Drew,” the ringleader of the gang rape Jackie describes, may be a fictional character. (Jackie described him as both a member of Phi Kappa Psi and a lifeguard at the Aquatic and Fitness Center. No such person fitting this description exists.) Instead of trying to bring her supposed rapist to justice, Jackie did everything in her power to stonewall any attempt to find him. When Erdely started to push to find out more about him, the investigators report that “Jackie stopped responding to Erdely’s calls and messages.” The silent treatment worked and Erdely capitulated, agreeing not to try to find out anything about this man, at which point Jackie “now chatted freely.”
Was Jackie a right-wing troll? Not sure what her motivation was, but I guess anything’s possible.
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There must indeed be a few rape deniers out there, but they are deviant weirdos.
Most people are irritated that Rolling Stone almost got away with passing off paranoid delusional fantasies as fact. And felt entitled not to check but because the whopper was so very important to recount, and therefore journalistic integrity could be damned.
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Agreed, but I think the disappointment is about the fact that she lied and her lie will undoubtedly be used against actual victims when they report a rape. It may even make some victims think twice about reporting for fear they won’t be believed. I’m glad she wasn’t raped, but I truly wish she hadn’t lied about it in the first place.
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All the more reason the Amanda Marcottes of the world should stop making excuses for “Jackie’s” behavior.
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" to argue that the attention paid to the campus rape issue is “a war happening on boys on these college campuses” and that the accused “no opportunity to confront witnesses and to present a defense.”"
Marcotte implies that this was a victimless false accusation, so what harm did it do? I would suggest you ask the members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at UVa if anyone suffered any real-world consequences from the claims. Sure, what the chapter members went through was not so bad as an individual being arrested due to a false allegation, but still a pretty damn disruptive event in their lives
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10 to the fifteenth power thumbs up!
Therein lies the real tragedy stemming from this sorry episode.
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And that’s why this is a story that shouldn’t have been written. “Jackie” is a trouble soul who needs to talk to some people at best, and this whole enterprise is a tawdry, tawdry chapter in the history of American journalism. Nothing to be dreaming up crackpot “silver linings” over.
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One must not let the journalistic shortcomings of the RS story obscure the reality of sexual assault on campus. Sexual predators and sociopaths are well aware of and very skilled at how to manipulate public misperceptions to increase the severity of trauma to their victims.
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Actually, Amanda, I’m pretty sure the Rolling Stone report isn’t what YOU hoped. I guess you have retreated to your own little head-space in which everyone who disagrees with you is a Men’s Rights Activist who thinks that women falsely report rape because they are scorned by men, or whatever.
The fact of the matter remains: this was a false rape accusation. They do happen. Pretending they don’t just makes you look [even] stupid[er]. It’s time to acknowledge that both rape AND false rape accusations happen and are wrong, and craft sensible policies that take both problems into account.
As you showed last week with your piece on “religious freedom,” you are actually capable of writing intelligent things when you’re not busy writing rants that trumpet your uninformed and ludicrous opinions about rape. Perhaps you should think about changing your focus.
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Why anyone in their right mind would give Amanda Marcotte carte blanche to write about a topic upon which see has so little authority to speak on, and who has a history of using controversial topics to promote her particular brand of extremism while accepting no personal responsibility for the effects her baseless accusations have had on innocent people, is beyond me.
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How do we even know if this “Jackie” person even exist? Would be that far fetched for a reporter to make up a victim in order to produce an article designed to bring attention to a cause?
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No. The “real tragedy” is the false accusation of gang rape leveled against an innocent fraternity and the extent to which certain people rushed to believe it because it fit into their preconceived notions about campus rape and sexual assault.
There is no other tragedy.
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We assume that it was a false rape accusation. How do we know “Jackie” even exist and wasn’t simply created by the author herself?
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All true, Ms. Marcotte — and utterly irrelevant. Since when have conservatives felt bound by the facts when the facts don’t advanced their ideology? You write “anti-feminists are surely going to use this story to cast doubts on rape accusations that have nothing to do with this situation — Andrea Tantaros of Fox News has already tried.” But of course she has not only tried but succeeded in the eyes of the only audience she cares about, namely the white male septuagenarians for whom Fox is a kind of political Muzak. They are never going to read the actual report, let alone your critique of it. The Tantaros version is the only one they will ever hear or ever want to hear.
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I respectfully disagree.
The fraternity was wronged no doubt and it will be awarded millions from the lawsuit.
No such avenue of recompense exists for the real victims of rape past present and future.
THAT
is the real tragedy
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A tragedy??? They’re about to make millions suing Rolling Stone. Those poor poor privileged men…
Meanwhile, women who are really raped by fraternities brothers all over the States will now be more afraid than ever to go to the police because of this has-been magazine and “journalist” didn’t do their jobs.
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Of course, let’s not ignore that the Amanda Marcottes of the world have created a climate wherein had “Rolling Stone” done due diligence they’d be getting attacked for “blaming the victim” or “slut shaming”.
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