Lie Down With Strippers, Wake Up With Pleas [Ann Coulter]

HumanEventsOnline.com ^ | Apr 19, 2006 | Ann Coulter

[boryeulb]

However the Duke lacrosse rape case turns out, one lesson that absolutely will not be learned is this: You can severely reduce your chances of having a false accusation of rape leveled against you if you don't hire strange women to come to your house and take their clothes off for money.

Get Yours FREE!

Also, you can severely reduce your chances of being raped if you do not go to strange men's houses and take your clothes off for money. (Does anyone else detect a common thread here?)

And if you are a girl in Aruba or New York City, among the best ways to avoid being the victim of a horrible crime is to not get drunk in public or go off in a car with men you just met. While we're on the subject of things every 5-year-old should know, I also recommend against dousing yourself in gasoline and striking a match.

Everyone makes mistakes, especially young people, but the outpouring of support for the victims and their families is obscuring what ought to be a flashing neon warning for potential future victims.

Whenever a gun is used in a crime, there are never-ending news stories about how dangerous guns are. But these girls go out alone, late at night, drunk off their butts, and there's nary a peep about the dangers of drunk women on their own in public. It's their "right."

Yes, of course no one "deserves" to die for a mistake. Or to be raped or falsely accused of rape for a mistake. I have always been unabashedly anti-murder, anti-rape and anti-false accusation -- and I don't care who knows about it!

But these statements would roll off the tongue more easily in a world that so much as tacitly acknowledged that all these messy turns of fate followed behavior that your mother could have told you was tacky.

Not very long ago, all the precursor behavior in these cases would have been recognized as vulgar -- whether or not anyone ended up dead, raped or falsely accused of rape. But in a nation of people in constant terror of being perceived as "judgmental," I'm not sure most people do recognize that anymore.

It shouldn't be necessary to point out that girls shouldn't be bar-hopping alone or taking their clothes off in front of strangers, and that young men shouldn't be hiring strippers. But we live in a world of Bill Clinton, Paris Hilton, Howard Stern, Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman," Democratic fund-raisers at the Playboy Mansion and tax deductions for entertaining clients at strip clubs.

This is an age in which the expression "girls gone wild" is becoming a redundancy. So even as the bodies pile up, I don't think the message about integrity is getting through.

The liberal charge of "hypocrisy" has so permeated the public consciousness that no one is willing to condemn any behavior anymore, no matter how seedy. The unstated rule is: If you've done it, you can't ever criticize it -- a standard that would seem to repudiate the good works of the Rev. Franklin Graham, Malcolm X, Whittaker Chambers and St. Paul, among others.

Every woman who has had an abortion feels compelled to defend abortion for all women; every man who's ever been at a party with strippers thinks he has to defend all men who watch strippers; and every Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton feels the need to defend duplicity, adultery, lying about adultery, sexual harassment, rape, perjury, obstruction of justice, kicking the can of global Islamo-fascism down the road for eight years and so on.

This is crazy. (I can say that because I've never been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder. Although I did test positive for "Olympic fever" once.)

In no area except morality would a sane person believe he can't criticize something stupid because he's done it. How about: If you've ever forgotten to fill up your car and run out of gas, you must forevermore defend a person's right to ignore the gas gauge. Or if you've ever forgotten to wear a coat in cold weather and caught a cold, henceforth you are obliged to encourage others not to dress appropriately in the winter.

This deep-seated societal fear of being accused of "hypocrisy" applies only to behavior touching on morals.

But we're all rotten sinners, incapable of redemption on our own. The liberal answer to sin is to say: I can never pay this back, so my argument will be I didn't do anything wrong.

The religion of peace's answer is: I've just beheaded an innocent man -- I'm off to meet Allah!

I don't know what the Jewish answer is, but I'm sure it's something other than, "therefore, what I did is no longer bad behavior" -- or the Talmud could be a lot shorter.

The Christian answer is: I can never pay this back, but luckily that Christ fellow has already paid my debt.

[Clemenza]

I think it is WRONG for women to go to strip clubs. We need a MEN ONLY rule for gentlemen's clubs. The only women in such clubs better be swinging around a pole. Not that I go to such places anymore. All they do is take money that could be better invested elsewhere.

[Clemenza]

That, of course, just before joking about the President manually pleasuring a male horse.

Lighten up! My grandma heard that joke from her cousin on his farm back in the 1950s!

[Spiff]

Lighten up! My grandma heard that joke from her cousin on his farm back in the 1950s!

Was your grandma's cousin, on his farm back in the 1950's, the First Lady of the United States, in the presence of the President of the United States and referring to him specifically, at the microphone telling that raunchy joke at a public event being broadcast to millions?

I didn't think so...

[napscoordinator]

Boy, you really missed the mark on this one....I don't know who you hang around with, but most of the people I know would never even consider this. My husband's 3rd cousin is the only one I know of that did something like that. It was the talk of the town. His fiance caught him watching naked women on cable and called off the engagement 2 weeks before the wedding. She ended it right on the spot and it stayed ended.



Are you serious? Not to be disrespectful, but you are either from Utah or 80 years old. I can't believe that you are serious. Although if you are joking, that was a good one. As much as I am a Catholic, I even have seen strippers. Please being 80 you never served in the military?

[Maigrey]

"If you can't be a good example, perhaps you can be a horrible warning..."

[curiosity]

Expulsion is a bit harsh, IMHO. Canceling their season, along with all the humiliation that came with the incident, is more than enough.

[freedom9]

Not every one that saith unto me, "that Christ fellow", "that Christ fellow", shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. :}

[sine_nomine]

Due process has been short-changed. It seems that the punishment came first. I am tired of the way college sports figures are coddled in general. I would not mind if they abolished college sports in favor of intramurals, but that will never happen.

[Dan Evans]

Not to be disrespectful, but you are either from Utah or 80 years old.

I think one of the most common mistakes that people make is to assume that everyone has the same cultural norms that they do. There are a lot of people in this country who are fundamentalist Christians and they keep a pretty low profile. And they aren't all in Utah.

[Dan Evans]

Due process has been short-changed.

And unfairly applied. When was the last time a college football or basketball season was canceled because some of the players were charged with rape.

[AndyTheBear]

And probably not 30 minutes before had just gotten a good one from Monica.

Now wait a minute, as I recall, he was "ministering" to the young woman. Said so himself.

[AndyTheBear]

Forget everything your grandmother taught you, and get on the program with the modern scientific view!

The grandma's believe that being cold increases your chance of catching a cold. Do you know of a study suggesting otherwise?

[curiosity]

Even if rape accusations are false (which looks likely at this point), they deserve to be punished for their crass behavior, i.e. hiring strippers, drunkenness, etc. They were not acting like gentlemen. I agree, the university's punishment is excessive, but some punishment is definitely warranted.

[sine_nomine]

I agree with you there. College should be a learning experience, not a rerun of Animal House.

[sine_nomine]

I would have said as college president, "All the teams are pretty much the same, so we are canceling athletic scholarships, ending the non-academic majors, and going to 100% intramurals - except for the chess and debate teams." That would be my last day as president, but it would be worth it.

[chris1]

Great article. Every time I point out how utterly dumb, naive, inept, and reckless MOST young women are today, I am pounced upon.

I also stated these DUKE guys are utter morons and idiots for what they did.

The bottom line is common sense aint so common anymore.

[chris1]

Give it up, these Duke kids, although probably not guilty of rape, are guilty of being morons and idiots with ZERO sense of reality.

[chris1]

That's just silly.

[jammer]

Why give up trying to make someone think? Being a moron or idiot doesn't call for indictment--as is evidenced by most posts on this thread. If you leave your car unlocked, and someone steals it, you did a stupid thing. But the thief is the one who is the criminal, not you.

[TChris]

> "There isn't a man, or woman, between the ages of 19 and 21 who has not seen strippers. "

Boy, you really missed the mark on this one....I don't know who you hang around with, but most of the people I know would never even consider this. My husband's 3rd cousin is the only one I know of that did something like that. It was the talk of the town. His fiance caught him watching naked women on cable and called off the engagement 2 weeks before the wedding. She ended it right on the spot and it stayed ended.

Its just another version of the "everyone's doing it!" excuse, an old favorite from adolescence regularly used to try and soothe a guilty conscience. ...and its still not true.