Not defending Franken, but anyone who waits years - even DECADES later to cry rape needs to shut up and sit down.
IF it happened at all, why didn’t they report it then?
Must be true because gals don’t lie./sarc
While I agree, I’m fine with the DEMs getting a taste of their own medicine. And if it happens to slap down Franken several notches, I’m good with that too.
Well if it SENATOR Franken then if they exclude Roy Moore they have to throw out Franken too
I disagree. I don’t think this gal is saying rape, she’s saying the guy stalked and harassed her.
I’m just gonna go ahead and guess you don’t have much first-hand experience dealing with victims of sex abuse.
It happens so much to these women you can’t report everything. So they just brush it off and move on.
“Not defending Franken, but...”
Yeah, you are defending Franken.
I generally agree but when there's a photo of the perp groping a sleeping victim and smiling for the camera it kinda changes things.
because not everyone goldbricks bad experiences and a lot of people, including victims who you would imagine in your head would be strongly indignant and defiant, wants to deal with the ordeal of filing reports, complaints, and everything thing that goes along with lawsuits or criminal investigations. Some people just want problems to go away.
I don't care who it is, if we allow women to come forward with DECADES old assertions of sexual misconduct and allow men to be destroyed as a result, than NO MAN IS SAFE!
There is no possible way for a man to defend himself against these charges decades later. Women who legitimately suffer sexual misconduct need to speak up or forever hold their peace. Not come forward decades later because said man is running for political office.
If we allow this to stand, than NO MAN IS SAFE EVER! If we allow men to be destroyed over old allegations that cannot ever be proven then we will have given the media and powers-that-be the power to destroy any man at anytime.
It’s a different world after Harvey Weinstein........
The dynamics about enduring and reporting sexual harrassment have been dramatically altered.
Keep in mind....this is a key issue for feminists....one even traditional women can agree on.
“IF it happened at all, why didn’t they report it then?”
The Harvey Weinstein effect. Franken was a SNL big wheel vs.young struggling actresses.
Count me among those who used to listen to the
old Lee Rodgers show on KSFO with Officer Vic and
Melanie Morgan. The show was hilarious from the
conservative POV and they owned the AM drive time
market in and out of the Bay Area. Melanie is
and was a hard ass conservative and I sure as hell
recall her relentlessly going after Franken back in
the day. Nobody was listening CLOSELY in those days
particularly when it was a known conservative woman
charging a libtard alleged male perp.
“Not defending Franken, but anyone who waits years - even DECADES later to cry rape needs to shut up and sit down.”
She did not say rape. If it was rape she probably would have reported it.
She said harassment, abuse and stalking.
And you are defending Franken.
Because back then, boorish behavior was not considered criminal. Even now, it is only criminal if a conservative does it. Franken has probably always had a reputation as a horny jerk. But now that conservatives are being accused of "sexual assault" over minor things that probably never even happened, we've reached a point where jerks like Franken need to be publically humiliated for things that we know happened (at least we know it happened in the case of the USO tour where there's photographic evidence).
Being stalked is scary.
Nothing ever happened to my uncle.
He’s still a beloved, wonderful member of the family.
When I told my mom, when I was 11, she refused to believe it.
Even accused me of “provoking him into it”.
Four years later, he started on my little cousin when she turned 10 [his favorite age] and what did my mom and her mom do?
Had a family confab in which it was decided nothing was ever to be said or done, lest it “ruin my aunt’s life”, as if living with a pedophile is a better fate.
If I spoke up *now*, guess what would happen.
My entire family would rise up against me and call me a liar, even the other cousins he got hold of.
They would crush me.
I would be living in constant fear that he would finally carry out the many threats he made against me, back then.
My trainwreck of a life would get *even worse*.
In 1972, *it was decided*, for good and all, that the kids would be sacrificed for the sake of the aunt and pedo uncle.
So, unless another of my cousins [or his other non-family victims] speaks up, this is where it’s at...and likely always will be.
Until someone with nothing to lose, like a non-family victim speaks up, we all maintain this guilty silence.
It is one incredibly wretched place to be.
I would reckon that is akin to what’s happening with these women.
Listen asswipe - I was sexually assaulted by my uncle as a child and was scared into secrecy. When I finally told my mother she didn’t believe me at first and that was like being molested all over again. I never told another living soul again until I was in my late 50s. It totally had a negative effect on my life until I “got my voice” and was able to discuss it and be believed about it. Unless it’s happened to you, you don’t have a clue.
Maybe you will take the word of another freeper. I am past retirement age. When I was in my 20s, 30s and 40s, "passes" were very common and there was literally nothing a woman could do about it through the civil authoriites back in the day before the development of sexual harrassment lawsuits (which are expensive and harrowing, by the way). Either you had a famiily member have a "talk" with the person, or if you had no such support system, you had to leave the job, the church or the rental property where these assaults took place. For instance, when I was 27, my landlady's husband let himself into my apartment with her pass-key, grabbed me, and forced his tongue into my mouth. I screamed and threatened to tell his wife, who lived downstairs. Fortunately, he left.
The same thing happened when I owned my own home and my husband worked long hours—a neighbor came over to "borrow a cup of sugar for his wife" and grabbed me and forced a tongue kiss and copped a feel. He outweighed me by 150 lbs and was an active member of the mafia. Luckily, he was afraid of my telling his wife, and he also left. Who was I going to call, knowing he could have me or my dog killed, my car trashed, my windows broken, my house robbed? So he spread rumors around the neighborhood that I was a lesbian, and all his little punk nieces used to yell that at me on the street in front of my child, in an otherwise wonderful Italian Catholic city parish with the huge church on the corner.
These are just two of the multiple, multiple incidents that happended at least once a year without warning from employers, neighbors, a pastor, or friends/relatives of close friends or of my husband—people you just never expected would take advantage. My husband's boss. My boss. My boss's important client. The husbands of other couples while getting you alone for a moment in the kitchen practically right in front of everyone else at a dinner party. Yes, I was good looking, but dressed modestly and, during many of these episodes over the years, was also married. It didn't seem to matter.
In many cases, the woman is blamed, no matter how unsolicited the groping had been. Even women's own parents from the former generations would not defend their daughters against authority figures like Dad's boss, a pastor, a teacher or a coach. They simply went into denial and blamed their daughter—or son—for causing them an uncomfortable thought. There are some men who are so spineless, they become jealous and punitive of their wives if the wife received unwanted passes from their husband's boss, relatives or friends.
Why women are coming out with a spate of complaints now is that finally, there is twitter and the pressure of social media, and the takedown of some powerful men. So there is a temporary feeling of strength in numbers that didn't exist before.
Remember that women are often punished at work, in socializing and in the the family for being too pushy, too unfeminine, too serious. As a result, many women are raised not to know that they have an option to respond forcefully to a disgusting unsolicited grope or sloppy unwanted tongue kiss. For some respectable, married professional men whom you would never suspect, the idea of forcing his hands or tongue on a stiffly resistant woman is a turn-on that they presumably take home to their wives later on, even if they never push it as far as a rape of their employee's wife or their wife's close friend. Other serial cheaters are just sampling around to see who will give in and sneak around with them.
I was one of the lucky ones who did not get raped or beaten when I rejected someone; but only because I am an assertive person and was raised with a father and brothers. Many women are not, and are terrified by an assault by someone bigger and stronger than themselves. And yes, someone putting his hands on one's breasts, butt, inner thigh, waist, lower back, neck, face, ears, head or hair is very intrusive and if unwanted, it is an assault.
Well, she isn't crying rape.
Here's the thing. What was once a socially tolerable level of, shall we say, libidinal insistence is now practically criminal whether the instigator is formally charged or not.
In many of these stories the 'victim' version of events are well below Pepé Le Pew's average romantic encounters.