But what about all the innocent athletes? (You know, the 16 foortball players at MSU that have been charged with sexual assault.) What about all the innocent fans? What about the innocent townspeople? What about all the innocent men? What about all the innocent gun owners? At this point, throw hands up in the air because nothing can be done ever. EVER. EVER. (By the way, I love the idea of the punishment lasting as long as the neglect did.) Because apparently hundreds of thousands of sexual assault victims, and tens of thousands of gun violence victims were never innocent? I like the idea of a SA data base, but could it ever be used against the victims? Hacked? Details spread over the internet? What you've described about gymnastics applies to the swim world too. There was a local coach, you know, one of the Swim Gods, who would talk to his young female swimmers with his finger hooked in the bottom of their swimsuit in public. The excuse was he was just an old school coach. It took people filming him at a swim meet to get him gone. His employers had just passed him along.

I disagree. I have one daughter and two sons. It is statistically far more likely that my dd will be assaulted than either of my sons will be falsely accused of sexual assault. Think about the fact that we already don't believe something like 90% of rape victims. The stories where false accusations are made and believed are few and far between. I believe they can be charged with filing a false report. The rates are estimated at anywhere between 2% and 9%. Let's even go with 10%. So with 1000 reported rapes, 100 men are falsely accused. Given the number of men who are actually sentenced for sexual assault, maybe, just maybe, 20 of them will face jail time. You are still looking at 900 women who were sexually assaulted. When we shift the focus of sexual assault to saving the men, this is what it looks like: 100 men > 900 women Is that really what you want? I know ideally, we don't want anyone "innocent" caught up in a false accusation. In fact, we seem far more comfortable with the idea of 900 women being raped. That seems to be acceptable. If it is, how can we ever change the rape culture? If we don't believe 90% of the women who come forward and we have really tough laws about false accusations, how many women would come forward? You've made it even more difficult than it is now, which is virtually impossible.

ESPN investigation into Michigan State's sexual assault scandal alleges cover-ups and cases that include football and basketball programs One of my "favorite" stories in here is the former Michigan basketball player and assistant coach who slugged a female student so hard he knocked her off a bar stool. Apparently, she and a group of girl friends were commemorating the loss of a friend in an accident when Big Man decided to crash their party. The student asked him to give them a minute. He was outraged and asked her if she knew who he was. She told him to eff off, so he slugged her. Twice I think. There were a bunch of witnesses and he still got off with a littering charge and he got to keep his job. I guess we could give Michigan points because they did fire him later over a sexual assault. These universities deserve having their sports programs shut down for a while until they can get their acts together and change their culture.

I think the answer would be, more than you know. It might even be, more than the "good guy" realizes. My dad's a pretty decent guy, but one evening after dinner out at a restaurant where he was making stupid comments to the waitress, I told him, "You know, Dad, I've been cocktail waitress. Do you really want me to tell you what she was thinking about your comments coming from an old, bald, pot-bellied guy?" "Let's just say she didn't think you were cute." Thankfully, he was only pissed off at me for about a day.

You are not a pushover like the rest of us.

This makes me think about parents who require children to hug and kiss people they obviously don't want to hug and kiss. We've mad a lot of parenting mistakes too, but I never required a child to have unwanted physical contact.

You both have given me a lot to think about with this point. I'll have to ask my dh and my oldest son when they get home. I do know that shortly after the MeToo movement started, I walked into our bedroom and my husband was in tears. He shared posts of several female friends that he had attended high school and university with who had posted their stories. We had just had dinner with three of them when we visited our son at college. My dh asked, "Does it really happen this often? Seriously?" "Yeah baby, unfortunately it does." So my next question is, do our good guys do enough on their own to stop jerky behavior. Do our spouses and partners speak up when jokes that are demeaning to women are told at the office party? Do our sons tell their drunk friends to quit hassling the group of girls at the bar who are obviously annoyed. You are all probably sick of hearing about this, but my anger at the Vanderbilt rape case has not subsided. Why didn't the football players who passed the naked victim unconscious in the hallway, who had obviously been assaulted, get her medical help and then go...uh, go find their asshole friends and...help them see the error of their ways? I do believe that "good men" could take "good actions" and make a significant reduction in sexual assault.

:grouphug: :grouphug: :grouphug: Kristen, I am truly sorry for your experiences and I can believe that a female cop would be disrespectful. I understand that women who file fake reports do hurt other women. I also know that the number of false reports is minuscule in comparison to the number of women and men who are assaulted. However, on just this board alone, I can't count the number of times that women have used this argument as an excuse to propose doing NOTHING except wear a gunny sack and don't leave your fortress home. Many women (also sexual assault survivors) read that as "We must let thousands of women be sexually assaulted in order to spare one man."

I am sorry, but this thought, this argument against doing more to prevent assaults, is part of our rape culture. We can name the handful of times a woman has filed a false report. Can we name the hundreds of thousands of people of have been sexually assaulted? It's the same thinking that goes with gun violence in this country. Meanwhile we sit on our hands, tut-tut about "the tragedy" and the number of victims keeps growing exponentially. What this argument says all over again, is that one man's life, career, is worth more than any number of women. Think about the scale with Nassar. Nassar > 200 young women That is a powerfully ugly truth that gets played out every day in this country.

Personally, if feel as though I have heard far more women deny the sexual abuse of other women, then I have heard men do. What is the payout (there has to be one) for women to do so? If we deny the experiences of other women, does it keep us safer? I really struggle with this one.

Thank you for sharing this.

It doesn't help that administering (?) the rape kits is sometimes done by inexperienced people who like to pass along their own thoughts as to the victim's responsibility. The process is awful and the labs are backlogged. That seems like it should be something we can change.

I can only speak to my experience with swimming. Our second year on club, my dd made an elite squad. At Christmas break, there were daily doubles. Two weeks of working six days a week with two 3 hour sessions per day. But during the mid day break, the swimmers were required to go home, run a couple of miles and do x number of crunches and push ups. My dd was dry heaving by the side of the track. I asked my good friend who had been in swimming for years with kids who had national cuts and later attending the Olympic trials, if this was okay. "Yes, this is what it takes." However, near the end of the break, another mom with nearly as good of swim credentials commented on how much weight my dd had lost and said, "Lisa, you understand that how this team trains is wrong, damaging?" She took her two swimmers with national cuts and left the team shortly after that. We stayed in swimming seven more years. I eventually went from lacking confidence in my understanding of how the sport works to "Screw this bs!" But it took a long time, too long. I can't count the number of swimmers I know who will experience chronic pain for the rest of their lives, including my son, even if I use all my digits. Over this Christmas break, Sailor Dude talked about his "what ifs?" Namely, what if his shoulder hadn't given out. It about broke my heart. He truly loved the sport, and sometimes still forgets that leaving swimming opened some new doors. I think it's important as sports parents to remember that the "experts" have their own motives, their own agendas. Your child's well-being isn't at the top of their list. That's your job.

I really like this post. It feels doable. Hopeful. Thank you!

Kinsa, at least you tried. A close family member was assaulted and we didn't really talk about reporting it. I felt like I couldn't push for it, because the circumstances were the kind that I've seen such an ugly response to on this board. All of the victim blaming and shaming. I wasn't at all sure if she would emotionally survive the process. I feel like a coward and the guilt weighs heavily. All of my life, I've said I would speak out and I didn't. Obviously, I have no answer to your balance question and it is part of why I am so angry with women who actively participate in judging assault victims.

One of the points that has really stood out to me was how many women tried to silence Nassar's victims.Then I was reading about MSU's issues within their athletic department and seeing there too, victims were discouraged from reporting by other women in positions of authority. "The redirecting sympathy to the plight of men (gun owners) afflicted by all this coming out (legislation)" makes me think of the mass shooting threads. In both instances, that old cliche keeps rolling around in my head: If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

It's not reprehensible. The woman was being "hysterical," that's why she needed to be silenced. I hate that one so much. It is usually said by male politicians that are way more keyed up than the woman they are addressing.

I have a black, glass cooktop so I do know what one of them is doing while I am sleeping because he leaves footprints. I do clean counters a lot. Our female never gets on the counters, but I have always done schoolwork at the kitchen table and she will jump up there. Ever since we brought her home, she hates to be left out of paperwork. She jumps up, lies down with her paw under her chin and stares at you. Then, if you let her stay, she slowly inches forward until her other paw is resting on your paper. She has a lovely, charming face and she knows it. I change the tablecloth before dinner.

You know that if you keep them out of anything you are doing that you will crush their little feelings, right?

You know that if you keep them out of anything you are doing that you will crush their little feelings, right?

I think that some communities are definitely worse than others - sports organization, universities, to name a few. I haven't been on for a while. Was there any discussion about the New York Times article on the culture of sexual harassment at the Ford Motor Company? With regards to sexual assault and speaking the truth, I think one of the starting points is for women to listen, really listen to what their sisters are saying and to suspend judgments like, "They deserved what happened to them because of the way they dressed, they way they acted, or for being in the wrong place at the wrong time." I think we also need to shift from the idea that protecting one powerful man, one much-needed for the championship football player, is worth harming thousands of women. This is a concept I have seen voiced on this board numerous times. I am thinking about the Cosby thread. We, as a culture tend to think that the powerful, the religious, the white skinned, and the males are more prone to speaking the truth and yet, we really have no proof that this is actually the case.

I don't think the judge's words are worth side-tracking from the horrible wrongs perpetrated against these victims. However, I do believe that as a society, we are at a very fragile tipping point. We have "leaders" who actively and vocally encourage racism, misogyny, and xenophobia. The words our leaders, those in power who should uphold our laws, really matter. They can inspire our better selves or destroy this nation. Katie, I wouldn't dream of debating the religious tenets. I respect where you are coming from. While my own Christian faith is in tatters, I still do have a moral code and that is why the judge's words bothered me.

That would also be a classic pattern in domestic abuse, no? I am grateful that we had more control and interaction with our kids for swimming. When they traveled, that was a bit different. I keep wondering when we'll see the Karolyis brought up. They weren't exactly known for being tender with their gymnasts.

Oh wow! I had completely forgotten about her fall. Thanks for sharing that.

Carol, did you see Mattie Larson's testimony. It was heartbreaking. She talked about deliberately hurting herself before having to go to the Karolyi ranch for practice. She said she was terrified of all the adults there and that Nassar seemed to be the one person she could trust. :unsure: