University of North Carolina football player accused of sexual assault: 'Everything was completely c

[Calista241]

Source: NY Daily News

University of North Carolina football player accused of sexual assault: 'Everything was completely consensual'


The University of North Carolina football player accused of sexual assault by a fellow student denies raping the woman and says the two had consensual sex. Allen Artis, 20, made his first public comments on the case since 19-year-old Delaney Robinson came forward about the alleged assault earlier this month.

“Everything was completely consensual that happened that night,” he said from his attorney's Durham, N.C., home while sitting alongside family members. “That’s the truth.” His attorney, Kerry Sutton, said Artis passed a polygraph test about the Valentine's Day incident.

...

“I was drinking that night on Valentine’s Day, I am underage and I take responsibility for that, but does not give anybody the right to violate me,” she said at the press conference, where she appeared with her father and attorney.

...

The junior linebacker was suspended from the team after he turned himself in on two misdemeanor warrants linked to the alleged rape earlier this month. UNC policy enforces the suspension of any athlete charged with a misdemeanor.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/unc-player-accused-sex-assault-completely-consensual-article-1.2809834

[Aristus]

1. "Don't worry about a thing, son. Just salute the flag at the next game,

and we'll forget this whole thing..."

[jalan48]

2. More like a privileged athlete exercising his privilege.

We had an incident in out town and all three athletes were "dismissed" from the team and allowed to transfer to other schools. It's all about winning games for the faithful viewers.

[jalan48]

18. It was in the newspaper. Three players were kicked off the team after a gang rape at a party.

A young co-ed that was drunk was raped by three players at a post game party at a private house. The administration of the University kept it quiet until after the playoffs were over, that way the players could continue to play on the team. Athlete privilege.

[spooky3]

28. Your question comes across as rude.

[niyad]

3. as usual, the treatment she received from the university was disgusting.

[Akicita]

4. According to her. She may have expected them to go full Mike Nifong on the accused.

There is a long history in this country of white women falsely accusing black men of rape where biased people just assumed the white woman was telling the truth and the accused black man was quickly tried and convicted whether there was evidence or not. Or they were just lynched. Nowadays I guess it is black athletes that are automatically presumed guilty.

I would prefer that a thorough investigation be conducted and the decision of whether to bring charges is based on the evidence and not on whether the accused is black or an athlete, or worse yet, a black athlete.

Until then, we should refrain from jumping to conclusions in the case or convicting the accused on this site, or slamming the investigation unless we have specific knowledge of evidence that is being ignored by the authorities. Our forefathers and foremothers did enough of that.

[LanternWaste]

5. No one on this site has the capacity to convict anyone

"we should refrain from jumping to conclusions in the case or convicting the accused on this site..."

No one on this site has the capacity to convict anyone bt merely posting. Benign speculation lacking any consequence is just that... benign speculation.

[Akicita]

6. Speculation that reinforces group think biases can be far from benign and can have

horrible consequences as evidenced by the speculations and assumptions that whipped up the lynch mobs of yesteryear.

[obamanut2012]

14. And doing what you said continues rape culture

Rape is the only crime where the victim is automatically considered a malicious liar who gets to have every part of her (and sometimes his) life examined before it's decided they are allowed to be a victim.

[Akicita]

19. How does following the evidence before passing judgement, which is what I advocate,

continue rape culture? Rushing to judgement without all the facts because of a preconceived bias is not right and led to a lot of innocent black men being lynched or being wrongly convicted. If a thorough and fair investigation provides enough evidence that this young black man raped the white woman then he should be arrested and brought to trial. As with those who are accused of any crime in this country, he will be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. At least that's the way it is supposed to work.

If you are saying a fair judicial system continues rape culture because some actual rapes cannot be proven you may be right. But we don't just convict a bunch of accused people in this country because some of them might be guilty. We used to do that to blacks in the early and mid 1900s but I would hope nobody advocates for that anymore.

[radicalliberal]

7. Does your sense of justice extend to actual rape victims who are further victimized by sports fans?

For example, in the Steubeville scandal, the victim received death threats after the two football players had been convicted. In the Penn State scandal, one of Sandusky's victims was "outed" against his wishes at his high school. A grandmother of one of the Penn State players walked up to the victim's mother and said, "Now my grandson's team is going to lose, and it's all your son's fault!" He also was bullied relentlessly by those of his classmates who were Paterno fans. They blamed the victim for his firing. As a result, he was forced to drop out of school. Where was the outrage over this injustice? I could go on and on. Do some research, and you'll discover there's been a long history in college football of rape being covered up. Baylor University is only the most recent example. Some people are not blind to the reality of "jock privilege" -- athletes not being held accountable as individuals for abusing or harming others away from the game. That's why some people react the way they do to news reports such as this one.

I grew up under Jim Crow; so, I know how horrible it was. But race is not a factor in most football rape cases. If a young woman has been raped or gang-raped by football players, in many instances she will be subjected to vicious persecution. You seem to not be aware of this particular injustice. Statistics will show that student athletes accused of rape are far less likely to be convicted than nonathletic men. I'm certainly not saying that all accusations of rape against football players are true, but there's no denying that many of the fans have no sympathy at all for the victims.

[Dream Girl]

9. I am a woman who has been assaulted more than once, however I don't have a knee jerk reaction

Just because the accused is an athlete. The legal standard for guilt still stands regardless of whether the accused was a football player or not. And yes sometimes women lie. Further, when two people are inebriated and have sex could the guy also make a case that he was incapacitated and raped? What gives women special victim status? I think there is a subtle racial component to these cases...white women are infantalized and give special victim status when in truth, they may simply have regretted a sexual encounter. It has happened many many times. I'm thinking of a case in New Yorek in which a young white woman had sex with several African American men. She later charged them with rape. They would have been strung up, but one of them filmed the encounter on his phone and it was obvious that she was more than willing and not some delicate flower who had been violated by a bunch of black brutes. Yes there was alcohol involved but everyone had been drinking, not just the woman.

[obamanut2012]

15. lolz

[ColemanMaskell]

13. Good point. Tangential but worth keeping in mind.

[radicalliberal]

22. Thank you.

[ColemanMaskell]

25. Also that effect you mention is not confined to athletic situations

It is common for a victim to be further persecuted for reporting the offense.

This seems to me most tragic in the cases where children are involved. An important common occurrence of this is when a stepfather, or a mother's boyfriend, assaults a child (or children) from a previous marriage, that is, pre-existing children of whom he is not the biological father. The child reports the assault(s). Too often the mother blames the child.

It isn't only children, though, and it isn't confined to rape cases.

Coincidentally enough, Trump is currently trying to accuse his long-suffering Democratic opponent of persecuting the women with whom her ex-husband allegedly had affairs. I doubt that happened, but I'm pretty sure there are analogous cases where wives do go after the women involved with their husbands, consensually or otherwise.

An athlete is in the situation of having a group around him that will rally immediately to his defense, regardless of whether he's guilty. However celebrities, rich people, people with family connections and so on are in a similar situation of having a ready group handy to spring to their defense, however inappropriate that reaction may be in a specific case.

It's a good point you make, and one that doesn't get enough attention. Fear of such persecution often makes victims reluctant to report assaults, enabling the perpetrator to continue and even emboldening him to escalate his offenses.

[radicalliberal]

27. Thanks again for the compliment.

I was surprised. I expected to be personally attacked by angry sports fans who don't want to hear any reports of scandal or corruption. Instead, we actually had an intelligent discussion.

[Akicita]

20. Of course. I think sports fans who further victimize rape victims are just as vile and despicable as

those who would figuratively lynch this young accused black man because he is an athlete without a trial or knowing the results of a thorough investigation. Both groups are acting on their biases rather than searching for justice.

[tblue37]

10. Does this look like consensual sex?

https://twitter.com/SarahKSilverman/status/776147950942560258

[ColemanMaskell]

12. It's possible.

Also the bruising might not be the result of that encounter.
It may in fact have been a brutal assault; but it might not; this picture alone is not proof of anything.

[obamanut2012]

16. Wow -- An actual, unabashed rape apologist on DU

How are you not ashamed about what you just wrote about a photo that shows a rape victim who was choked so badly by her rapist her entire neck and throat is one huge livid and extreme bruise?

[ColemanMaskell]

24. It's for a court to decide, and calling me names doesn't change that

I saw a photo of a bruise. How it was incurred I don't know. That is why we have courts of law. To prevent lynchings and trials by press and hearsay.

If you want to change the way people behave, you need to understand the processes that motivate the behavior. Trying to understand what motivates a person is not an apology for the behavior. It is part of an attempt to alter what happens in the future, so the problem does not keep recurring.

Vengeance and anger are whack-a-mole. Until you understand and address the roots of the behavior, you won't have much success changing it. It will happen again and again with different actors in the roles.

[Calista241]

21. Ouch, that's brutal.

If she's reporting this injury at the hospital, which is where i assume this was taken, it was clearly not consensual.

[ColemanMaskell]

11. He may actual believe it was consensual even if it wasn't

Though most such cases in the news are clear cut, this does not sound clear cut to me.

People can honestly see a situation in totally different ways.

I'm inclined to think he actually believed it was consensual (from the scant information given).

Reality is -- real life situations are -- often nuanced, not clearly black and white.

I'm reminded of an intimate situation in which a guy suggested his intent to do something, and the girl responded with the words "Oh yeah?", as a question like "says who?" or "oh really? You think so?", and the guy honestly believed she meant "Oh yeah!" as a statement of enthusiastic acceptance and encouragement. True she had the opportunity to clarify her position subsequently as long as there was no actual force involved, but this is just an illustration: The different interpretations of the simple statement --- "Oh yeah?" or "Oh yeah!" -- illustrates how two people can interpret the same situation differently.

Another illustration is the old idea of "silence is consent" which can mean that a woman conflicted by indecision might not resist an advance, and a man inclined by his nature to be a bit egotistical might interpret this as acceptance. He should be smarter than that, but it is an honest mistake (or can be).

In some cases there might be intimidation without actual use of force. The problem in understanding such situations is that the man might not intend to intimidate and might not understand that he is coming across as intimidating. If the woman is by nature shy, as many young women are, and if she is not just shy but further hindered by feelings of fear, she might not protest; she might even respond. If he understood the situation, this would be wrong, but if he does not understand what is going on then it is unclear -- sort of like the difference between injuring someone accidentally or deliberately.

Another thing that sometimes happens sometimes is that one or the other party to a consensual interaction, typically the woman (or the man sometimes if he's married), regrets an intimacy after the fact. This can happen spontaneously, but more often it is the result of emotional conversation with a third party, say for example the woman's father or the man's wife. The third party naturally wants to place blame on the accused offender, and badgers the victim until she (or he) agrees that it was a case of rape (or sometimes seduction).

For (some) other crimes we make the distinction of intent, e.g. manslaughter vs murder. It is possible that some such distinction might be called for in laws dealing with rape.

Obviously we don't know all the details, but he should be innocent until proven guilty.

[obamanut2012]

17. Up thread you poo-poo the horrific injuries she sustained while being raped

Now, you are playing the "Girl had sex and then regretted being a slut yo" rape apology "argument."

And say, well, silence is consent. I guess in this case, he choked her so badly he left extreme bruises on her throat, which means she couldn't do anything but gasp, so I guess that was consent, huh?

ALL YOUR POSTS IN THIS THREAD ARE RAPE APOLOGY POSTS

Why are you even here?

[ColemanMaskell]

23. I'm saying there are two sides to every story and he's innocent until proven guilty

If you were serious about trying to prevent rapes, you would be interested in understanding how and why they occur. When you have that information you can try to change the underlying situations that lead to rape, for example lack of understanding of the other person's point of view can be addressed by introducing mandatory classes on the subject. Unless you try to understand the roots of a problem, you cannot fix the problem.

Lynching alleged rapists does not prevent future rapes with other people playing the roles. The only way to reduce and prevent future occurrences is to address the underlying causes. To do that, you first have to know what those are. You have to understand the viewpoints of the participants. If you can't do that you don't know where to aim useful interventions; you're just shooting in the dark.

[deathrind]

26. After what happened

With the Duke Lacrosse incident passing judgment either way at this point would be a terribly unwise thing to do. Allow the case to move forward be tried and await the juries verdict.