Letters to the Editor
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I'm FIRST!
Banning words huh? How is that different than what feminists did with their 'political correctness' crusade? Sounds like the shoe is on the other foot and somebody is stomping like they hate it.
As for men looking at women's faces first. Of course that is true. There is a reason paper bags were invented. Funny how this is another example of how women jump to the wrong conclusion about men, repeat their false assertion a million times until it sticks in the society, then act surpried when reality is nowhere near what they imagined. (and men both suffer under this, and begin to believe it themselves, further lowering their self esteem). Methinks the women complaining about men looking down is because the women can't stand the fact that they are not 'lookers' in the face department. (as opposed to men who HAVE to put up with their lack of good looks and suffer lack of sex, affection, etc.)
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ftlog
Yes, Brightstar, I take it all back. It is, indeed, all about you. Your frustrations with feminist cultural criticism and "political correctness" are clearly directly relevant to a linguistic gag order in a court of law. How silly of us feminists not to see the obvious parallel between citizens speaking out against racist and sexist language in our culture and a judge forcing a woman to say "sex" when she means "rape."
You did get the part where the whole objection to the gag order was that there is no term to describe a sexual act that does not either imply consent (sex, intercourse) or the lack of consent (penetration, assault, rape), right?
Oh, sorry, forgot. This is all about you.
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brightstar65 is right...
How many times do people have to tell you that speech should not be banned? The solution to ugly speech is more speech.
Banning words in a courtroom because they might be prejudicial assumes the jury is a bunch of idiots.
And so does banning speech in general. I want idiots and assholes to be able to make their idiocy and assholism well known. And I don't want speech or thought police coming around and telling me what I can or cannot say, can or cannot read, and can or cannot think. But that's exactly what feminists do all the time, including at Broadsheet today.
There are no dangerous words. There are only dangerous people.
And yeah, men look at faces more than women do. Heaven forfend because the women are objectifying my cock.
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"Rape" is a legal term
It appears in Nebraska Code of Criminal Law (or whatever the exact term is in that state). It's outrageous for this loony judge to ban the official name of a crime which occurs in his state, but loony judges are a dime a dozen.
Lots of hatred of women out there. Sign of a sick society.
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Re: DonaQuixote
...How silly of us feminists not to see the obvious parallel between citizens speaking out against racist and sexist language in our culture...
Yeah. But not quite as silly as when you make accusations of racism and sexism and get bitten in the ass when they turn-out to be untrue. (Cough! DUKE U! Cough!)
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Throwing Pi's
And I don't want speech or thought police coming around and telling me what I can or cannot say, can or cannot read, and can or cannot think. But that's exactly what feminists do all the time, including at Broadsheet today.
You're back, and with more absurdities. Where and when did feminists call for the revocation of the first amendment? Or do you fail to comprehend the difference between these extremely different assertions: "people shouldn't" and "the government should ban"?
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Get more specific
Of course the situation isn't ideal, but if you read how difficult this court case has been, the judge is bending over backwards to get a verdict and have it hold up. If the words listed in the article are the only ones banned, I don't see the issue. "He was penitrating me, he was inside me, I did not consent, his penis repeatedly entered my vagina against my will, etc." There are lots of ways to express one's experience and even the emotional toll and consequences without using terms that imply criminality or consent.
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Good Point
I don't agree with the judge's decision. I do believe that the language Just Jake describe has potential to make more of an impact on the jury. To describe the act in-depth is more graphic than simply using the word "rape".
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Ah, yes, the Duke Strawman! I'd missed him so ...
It's so effective to criticize feminism by painting us all with the same broad brush. Feminists had diverse responses to the Duke issue, but the extreme ones got the press (as is the case with every issue in our media today). I for one was wanting Nifong disbarred a long time ago. And I doubt very much that the police or the prosecutors who mishandled that case were feminists or motivated by feminism. In my opinion they did a great disservice to people who seek real social justice for oppressed people in this country.
And for goodness sakes, the absence of a rape in that case does not imply that there was no racism or sexism (and hell let's add classism into the mix) involved in a bunch of frat boys hiring an African-American stripper to entertain them, then getting drunk and hurling racial epithets at her. And the way that the accusations were interpreted was also about race and gender too, which I as a feminist also think is very important but not so important that it obviates every single thing that a feminist says from here unto eternity.
The Duke case is going to be the perpetual strawman of every antifeminist on the web. The "logic" being: because some feminists jumped to conclusions on that issue, this means that all feminists are wrong about everything. Really, though, that strawman is starting to look awfully threadbare.
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Sorry, but I have to side with the judge here.
Making this a "freedom of speech" issue is absurd. What we're talking about is what a jury--the fact finder in a CRIMINAL case that determines the fate of a man accused of a felony sex offense--is allowed to hear in the courtroom. Not about anything this woman is allowed to say in the public sphere.
In this case, the defense attorney got it right when he said that "rape is a legal conclusion." It is not the place of a witness, or either attorney for that matter, to tell the jury what rape is. That is the sole province of the judge as arbiter of the law. It is for the witness to truthfully tell what happened in non-conclusory language as best as she remembers, in response to the prosecution's questioning. It is for the jury to determine what actually happened, and whether it was rape based upon the judge's instructions.
"He swung at me with his fist and hit me in the nose, causing it to break and bleed profusely" is a narrative. "He battered and assaulted me" is a conclusion. Get the difference? To permit the witness to testify to the conclusion that she was raped would be highly prejudicial and would put her in the position of the judge and would improperly shift the burden on the defendant, who is presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
I like Broadsheet very much, but I do have to say that the coverage of legal issues, especially criminal issues, is very weak, misleading, and beyond the authors competency as writers who obviously have no legal training. The Slate article quoted suffers from the same problem. It asks whether "rape" is really a more inflammatory word than "robbery," which it very well may be, but ignores the fact that this is routinely the practice in robbery cases and criminal jury trials generally, except no one would be writing this article in the first place if it wasn't about a sex offense. No judge worth his salt would let a prosecution witness testify that he was a "robbery victim" over the defense's objection; that's a perfect example of conclusory language.