Zerlina Maxwell and Sexual Violence: We Agree On One Aspect, Not on Another

I have great respect for Zerlina Maxwell and no desire to contradict her on what are thoughtful and well stated positions on the prevention of sexual violence. I support fully the central argument she makes:Stopping rape is an issue men must take up rather than women.She’s right, and that cannot be underscored enough (I've addressed the issue previously here). Women cannot “stop rape” by being better behaved, smarter, more intuitive, or even by being better self-protected (i.e., with a firearm). Colorado state senator Evie Hudak has absorbed  much criticism for challenging a witness at a legislative hearing on the efficacy of firearms in the protection of women.  But while Hudak’s remarks might have been perceived as inartful, they are not baseless. The vast majority of sexual assaults on women are perpetrated by men they know, and whom they’ve invited into their physical environments with their guards down; thus, in situations where a gun- no matter how proficient the owner- would make no difference. The gun lobby and its gun-worshipping echo chamber have of course demonized Hudak, Maxwell, and everyone else who dares to contradict the intoxicating, Hollywood scenario of street justice meted out by a gun-toting woman against some horrific offender. But the sad fact is that guns don’t prevent the kind of rape most often perpetrated on women, men or anyone else. It just doesn’t work that way (as an aside, it’s funny to me how conservatives blame Hollywood for everything but will stand beside the “Death Wish” narrative as a real prescription for addressing interpersonal violence).To be clear: I would never discourage any woman- a stranger or my little sister- from owning and training with a handgun for personal defense. Nor would I refrain from applauding heartily if her possession of the gun, willingness to use it, and skill and good fortune in its use resulted in the neutralization of someone who meant her harm. But I deal in reality and not macho fantasy. I know that a gun is a sword and not a shield; that simply owning one is several steps away from its utility as a protective measure. And I know that that reality almost never involves a Tarantino-esque bloodbath against the unjust and in favor of the righteous.My only disagreement with Ms. Maxwell’s prescription for a safer world is with her apparent belief that men (and more to the point boys) can be taught to be less sexually aggressive, i.e., “taught not to rape.” Research does not bear this out. In fact, most men are not sexually violent. Many if not most have learned objectifying and unhealthy attitudes toward women and sexuality, but most will recognize discomfort or terror, or a state of unconsciousness (or semi-consciousness) on the part of a potential victim and back off. Most men don’t need to be taught to refrain from sexual violence.Again, to be clear: This does not mean for a second that I don’t favor teaching boys as they grow into manhood more about decency, equality, and non-patriarchal gentleness toward women. It only means that, when it comes to the urge, desire or proclivity to commit felonies, the violators are generally not teachable, and the non-violators are not in need of that kind of instruction. A healthier societal attitude toward women will probably encourage more bystander intervention (which I do think is a good area to invest time and effort) and may generally make men think twice before objectifying in the first place. But that’s a distant dream in a media environment saturated with sex and objectification, and currently selling everything from toothpaste to tires.The most perplexing and frightening aspect of sexual violence is the mystery of its origins. Most who believe in an ordered universe assume that evil is not innate but inculcated, and thus preventable or at least reversible. Would that I could agree, but it’s not what recent and replicated research on the subject suggests. Similarly, supposed “equalizers” like handguns are floated as panaceas, but they are not the answer either- and they carry terrifying potential downsides.The answer, as Ms. Maxwell suggests, lies within the perpetrator. Unearthing it, sadly, is still an elusive proposition.     

Virginia, Blood and Soil

Through five European dominated centuries, Virginia soil has been stained red time and time again. The Civil War alone drew so much blood- along the turnpikes and rivers, in the killing fields and tree lines- it's a wonder it wasn't coughed up by the tired, stomped-on ground tasked with absorbing it.Within eight days of each other this month, the blood of two men, both police officers, again stained Virginia ground in two places quite familiar with its presence. One occurred in Alexandria, the contested and then occupied port city just south of Washington, and one in Dinwiddie County, southeast of Petersburg and cross-hatched within the brutal conquest of Richmond and then the Confederacy.One man lost his life at the scene. The other, thankfully, clings to life.I know Peter Laboy, the officer shot in Alexandria on a traffic stop who, as of this writing, thankfully survives and improves. We were rookies at exactly the same time in early 1997, him of the Alexandria Police Department and me as an Assistant Commonwealth's Attorney.  As I learned to prosecute Driving While Intoxicated cases, Peter was learning to write them up; I would spend time with him on nights I was riding along with the evening and midnight divisions in search of drunk drivers. He was kind, boyish and soft-spoken in those days, not yet possessed of the confidence I imagine he has now as a veteran of the city's elite motor unit.I did not know Junius Walker, the Master Trooper and 35 year-veteran of the Virginia State Police who was shot and killed when he stopped to assist a motorist along I-85. He seems like a fine man and exactly the kind of cop who made me truly enjoy the interaction I had with police officers and state troopers over the years. I do know well the desolate, wooded stretch of road he was killed along, and I doubt I will travel it again without thinking of him. By God's design we all return to the earth, bones and flesh to dust again. But a somber salute should be offered to these two men who most recently gave early to the earth precious blood in service to their Commonwealth. May that already hallowed ground not be burdened again with the red stain of violence for a long, long time.

Homeschooling At Its Worst: A Child Starvation Case in Oklahoma

Among the worst cases I've ever consulted on, this one involved a 10 year-old boy tortured through "discipline," isolated from the community and ultimately starved to death by both his mother and her paramour. The paramour was an enlisted soldier at Fort Sill, Oklahoma; the case came under my purview because I was an Army civilian consultant at time the case was investigated. The children, including the dead young boy, were "home-schooled," which for the murdering parents was simply a convenient way to isolate him from an otherwise decent and caring military community around them.I've written on the dangers of home-schooling in this space before. I am not anti-home schooling, and in fact have great respect for people who do it right (a few are old friends). Further, I recognize how children can be and certainly are harmed in traditional schooling environments. But the isolation, secrecy and helplessness of the victim are never more accentuated or unanswerable than in a torturous, unregulated and out of control homeschool environment. Allowing for further deregulation of home education in the name of "freedom" will lead to more children stripped of not only freedom but also safety, health, and their very lives.

Marsha Blackburn & VAWA. Would it Protect Too Many Women?

Marsha Blackburn represents an odd shaped district in Western Tennessee. She's a Republican and considered to be among the most conservative women in the House of Representatives. I'm anything but a Republican, but when it comes to anti-violence issues and law and order, I find common ground with many in the GOP. John Ashcroft, the US Attorney General under George Bush, was not someone with whom I agreed on most issues, but his efforts to protect children from online exploitation in particular (at a time when Internet and computer facilitated abuse was exploding) was a welcome focus as far as I was concerned.Blackburn was an original supporter of the re-issue of the Violence Against Women Act in May of last year. VAWA has, since 1994, provided billions of dollars in funds for various aspects of the response to sexual and intimate partner violence. It's also led to changes in Federal and state laws that have made it easier to hold offenders accountable and spare victims some of the worst indignities and unfairness of the system.The liberal online publication Think Progress flat out insists that Blackburn opposed the Senate version of the bill (which finally passed last week) because it seeks to provide specific, targeted protection to women who are gay and lesbian, Native American women on reservations, and undocumented aliens. I haven't heard Blackburn admit to that in those words, but her own reasoning for voting against the latest iteration of VAWA doesn't leave much room for an alternative explanation.When questioned on MSNBC about why she voted against the latest iteration, Blackburn first asserts that whatever was in the Senate version would "dilute" the efforts of previous versions. She mentions the importance of shelters for domestic and sexual violence and also child advocacy centers (CAC's are generally funded by non-VAWA grant programs) and decries the law becoming "an anti-violence act" instead of something she considers more "targeted and focused."Targeted and focused on whom? is the question begged.After a few seconds of universally agreed upon loftiness about the issue, she's directed back to what she didn't like in the final version she voted against. It's then she utters the already infamous statement about not liking how it was expanded "to include other different groups."These "other different groups" are groups of women. Females of her species that, in fact, have been traditionally victimized at far greater rates than whatever "groups" of women Rep. Blackburn appears to find worth protecting. Native women are notoriously underserved and overrepresented as victims of domestic and sexual violence. Those who are thrust into the shadows by their legal status (undocumented persons) or for cultural and religious reasons (Lesbian, Gay, Transgendered and Bi-Sexual) are far too often terrorized into silence and grossly under-supported when they do seek help.The interviewer didn't press the Congresswoman further to identify the groups she was referring to, and instead let her end the segment with diversionary politic-speak about how she's sponsored this and attended that in her home district (again referring largely to Child Advocacy Centers which are a great idea but not the focus of VAWA).  Glaringly obvious, though, is the path the bill took and the emergence of religious and conservative opposition to the provisions designed to address under-served populations. Being a part of that opposition, Blackburn should better explain why.Conservative opposition to government spending programs regardless of their intent and scope is nothing new and nothing shameful. But Blackburn's issue isn't the money as she supported the original House version. Maybe her concerns include VAWA's effect on the jurisdictional boundaries of Indian tribunals as it did for Eric Cantor. That's about as charitable a characterization as can made with regard to that "group," and if so she should attempt an argument. As for other women often relegated to the margins of society like the undocumented or LGBT?  Perhaps she thinks there isn't a need for additional focus against violence toward them. If so, she is startlingly ignorant. But I'm not betting on that. I'll bet on bigotry instead; the sad but apparent fact that Blackburn values some women over others, period. I'll stand by that until proven incorrect. 

Comments on the Jordan Johnson Rape Case: The Way We Still Think

Below are a handful of comments from one single Montana Missoulian news story on the Jordan Johnson rape case which concluded with an acquittal this week. The overwhelming majority of commenters sided with the defendant based on the type of ignorance, myth and misinformation seen below. In one case a survivor of rape while in college claimed that "Jane Doe" (complainant) wasn't a valid victim because Doe's reactions weren't the same as those she had.If this sample of the commenting, news-reading public was reflective of the jury pool that decided the case, the prosecution never had a chance.“If he had man handled her the way she says, she would have had clear bruising on her torso, and if it penetrated her where she said, the rape kit would definitely have shown massive trauma. The facts just don't add up.”“If a girl doesn't want to risk getting raped, then don't put yourself in a dicey situation. She knew he was possibly drunk, then picked him up and hung out by themselves. What would THAT tell any guy?” “Bottom line: Two stupid people” “I must have missed something. I would like to know how you can claim rape when you have two male roommates, whom you should trust, next door and you don't scream. They must be making the walls in rental houses more sound proff than they used to. When I was in college my roommates would have had their water glass plastered against the wall so they wouldn't miss the action.” “If a woman/girl does not want to 'invite' trouble, you do NOT make a conscious effort to pick up a drunk guy and then take him back to your place to be together. Any guy would definitely call that a direct invitation to do more, not too mention nobody knows what their prior history is either. There's always been PLENTY of ditzy, stupid, girls trying to 'bag' the hot sports jock as well. Lesson to be learned: some people have to STOP putting themselves in bad situations in the first place. Both of these idiots made the same bad decision under a jointly dumb circumstance. He wasn't her boyfriend, they weren't dating, he was clearly cheating, and she didn't care that he was intoxicated. Case closed.” “I think these people [advocates, medical personnel, police] "pushed" her into bringing this to court. What started out as a young lady feeling "jilted" or "used" telling a small fib, quickly snowballed. These "advocates" had an agenda. They believed that football players got special treatment, and felt "privileged". They wanted to put a stop to that.” “I am a 64 year old grandma I would not want my grandaughter raped and I would not want my grandson falsely accused of rape. I can say from my perspective he did not commit rape according to Montana law. He did commit stupidity. Please let this young man go and make something of his life. Ms Doe just own up and take responsibility.” “Based on the testimony that I have read thus far, I would characterize the events of that evening as a "BAD DATE" for both parties.” “I hope this is a lesson for all you guys out there. Make the gals sign a contract before going on too bigger and better things. Don't complicate your life.”Indeed, "gals." Maybe a contract will stop you from being raped. Maybe "better behavior."Failing that, if you are raped, your body had better showcase it in terms of "massive trauma" that we all know always manifests itself. And you'd better react the way the world around you damn well believes you should. If you don't, we'll call you stupid, jilted, bitter, foolish, greedy, crazy. A liar.Yeah, that's right. You're better off keeping quiet.

Courage: An Army Rape Survivor Speaks Out

An important blog called My Duty to Speak exists to give military sexual violence survivors a forum to share their experiences. The one shared most recently is particularly haunting. An unrelated hazing incident after the attack added further trauma. But nothing equals the apparent confession the attacker made during an "amnesty day" in front of drill sergeants who took no action. Incidents like this underpin, among other things, an alarming suicide rate. Good on this person for possessing the courage to come forward and speak up.

The Onion & Quvenzhané Wallis: Perspective from Scott Mendelson

I've been a fan of the Onion since I knew it existed. I follow the magazine on Twitter, but missed the now notorious tweet that referred to a 9 year-old child as a "cunt." When I became aware of it, I wanted to write about it with indignation and righteous anger. The Onion has apologized and promised to tighten restrictions on who can send tweets under its avatar. Regardless, I was infuriated and hoped everyone else was.And then I read Mendelson's take on the controversy in the Huffington Post. He makes provocative points, among them the one that frankly shut me up:"What exactly is the right age to be called a cunt in public, be it overtly or through insinuation? What exactly is the right age to start being judged on their attractiveness or fashion choices?"Like many people, I've been ready to condemn the Onion for releasing a vicious tweet about a child. But like almost as many, I've failed to see how drawing a distinction in terms of the age of the target, while understandable on its face, really doesn't make that much of a difference.It was wrong. Utterly. But so is the society we've set up, in terms of what it would likely tolerate- and will tolerate- to be stated about the young, lovely and talented Ms. Wallis when she is old enough to objectify mercilessly without shocking the conscience. 

From Margaret Atwood, Author of The Handmaid's Tale

"Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them."

From A Former Prosecutor To A UNC Student Prosecutor: An Open Letter

Ms. Elizabeth IrelandStudent Attorney General, Graduate and Professional SchoolsThe University of North Carolina at Chapel HillDear Ms. Ireland:First, I commend you on the tough work you do in order to help maintain an atmosphere of integrity, civility and safety at UNC Chapel Hill, my own alma mater in terms of the law degree that has graciously shaped my professional life. Your job is not an easy one, and I’d guess it seems even less so in light of your apparent (now publicized) decision to bring charges against Landen Gambill for a violation of UNC Honor Code IIC, 1.c.  Second, I have no intention of questioning your decision based on the evidence you have before you, simply because I do not have it before me. No prosecutor should be taken to task by an outsider who lacks the same access to information that she has.I do, however, have your Code before me, the one I presume you are sworn to uphold and from which you form specific charges addressing clearly proscribed conduct. You have charged Ms. Gambill with: “Disruptive or intimidating behavior that willfully abuses, disparages, or otherwise interferes with another” regarding that person’s opportunities broadly as a member of the UNC community. Again, without making assumptions about what you know, this appears to be in response to Ms. Gambill’s public reflections on the abuse she reported against an intimate partner last year; presumably you suspect that Ms. Gambill's actions amount to violative behavior toward another student. Yet a close friend of Ms. Gambill’s claims confidently (I’ve seen nothing to contradict her) that 1) Gambill has never publicly named the man she alleges assaulted her, and 2) the bulk of her protestations involve not what he did but how she was treated by the Honor Court process itself.I can only assume you either know something I don’t, or that you believe with the appropriate level of certainty that Landen Gambill is yet responsible for the Honor Code violation you’ve drawn up. In any event, I’d ask you to consider two things: First, prosecutorial decisions shouldn’t be made in a vacuum. Even if you believe Gambill has somehow “abused, disparaged or otherwise interfered” with her former partner to an extent that somehow violates your Code, is she really an appropriate person to target? Admittedly, I have a bias: I believe Gambill told the truth to the Honor Court last year and that she was seriously if unintentionally mishandled. But even if I was less convinced on either issue, I fail to see how your resources and goodwill are well spent with this prosecution. Understanding that you are rightfully independent of the administration in terms of your charging decisions, this one seems only to be drawing more negative attention to a university that, by all appearances, would be well advised to focus less on students struggling to heal and more on those who are harming them. Second, just as I’d ask you to consider your case against Gambill in the context of other factors, I’d ask you to carefully consider the entire section under which you’ve charged her. The governing language of IIC 1.c is found in IIC: “It shall be the responsibility of every student...to refrain from conduct that impairs or may impair the right of all members of the University community to learn and thrive in a safe and respectful environment; or the capacity of University and associated personnel to perform their duties, manage resources, protect the safety and welfare of members of the University community, and maintain the integrity of the University.” Landen Gambill is a credible victim of both devastating abuse and a flawed system of adjudication now rightfully removed from consideration of her type of complaint. The abuse she alleges on your campus is exactly the kind of behavior that impairs rights, threatens safety, mocks respect, and curtails profoundly the capacity of everyone at UNC to learn and grow to her highest potential. By her efforts to seek redress, both personal and in terms of the University response, it is Gambill who is seeking to uphold integrity here, Ms. Ireland. Punishing her on dubious or hyper-technical grounds renders your process absurd, cruel, and feckless.

"Uncle Fans" And The Shaming of Fetishized Female Asian Pop Stars. Why Is This Tolerated?

Jezebel featured a disturbing story about a 20 year-old Japanese pop star, one of dozens of young women in a "girl group" called AKB48. The woman, Minami Minegishi, violated the no-dating rule the band has in place for its performers and was caught by a photographer leaving the home of her boyfriend on a recent morning. For this transgression, she shaved her head, made a tearful apology video for her fans, and was demoted from some higher status she had within the group to that of a "research student."CBS News reports "AKB48 says it forbids its members from dating to project a clean image and signal their devotion to the group and their mostly male fans."A clean image? Really? You can see a five minute AKB48 music video at the Jezebel piece. The opening seconds are of an young looking girl in lingerie being caught disrobing (the camera is looking through a keyhole). She appears later wearing fishnet stockings and with her 89 co-stars sharing bathtubs, kissing one another and passing cookies mouth-to-mouth, all while writhing around in a little-girl bedroom environment with stuffed animals and pink flower petals.It's a fetishized, highly disturbing sexualization of childhood with a backdrop of music supposedly aimed at younger girls between maybe 10 and 13. If that market- "tween" pubescent girls- were the ones buying the lion's share of this music, it would be unfortunate enough. US pop stars have for years been pushed to sexualize pubescence or worse (see Britney Spears, circa 1996). But for many groups like AKB48 and similar "J-Pop" and "K-Pop" acts from South Korea and Japan, the fan base is mostly male and much older.So the concern is hardly a "clean image." It's far more not alienating their older male fans who not only buy up their CDs, but also covet tickets to so-called "handshake events" where they seek as much one-on-one time with their favorite girls as producers or whomever will allow. CD's often come with coupons that can be redeemed toward tickets to handshake events, so supposedly American or Asian men with the requisite funds can by hundreds of CD's at a time in order to procure a ticket, fly to Japan and get face time with the child idol of their choice.Anyone who isn't alarmed by this as a gold-plated opportunity for child sexual exploitation is remarkably naive. How much money would it take for an "uncle fan" (the misleading term given to older men who follow little girl groups) to get, say, just 30 minutes alone with a young female performer, away from the prying eyes of the public? How about a private dinner at a discrete and exclusive club or hotel? And would she have to be 18, if he was really just being an "uncle" anyway? What's the harm with a gentle uncle spending some alone time with his "niece?"Is there anyone who honestly believes the right amount of money and discretion couldn't buy direct access to these children and young women for God knows what?Come back to the reason behind Minegishi's humiliating apology video. She violated a rule put in place so that the group's older male fans won't be offended by their affections being aimed elsewhere. The idea is that these men feel a bond with their girl idols; the idols sing to them, are loyal to them. Belong to them.Because she violated the terms of her fantasy, "owner-slave girl" relationship with some untold number of men nearly twice her age, she was punished, including a grotesque head shaving (evoking self-mutilation) and apology to those men. Those are the rules for pop stardom in Japan. Alienate men and suffer the consequences.People usually envision children abused in the production of pornography, and they are. But sexual abuse and exploitation of children occurs in the mainstream entertainment world as much as in any other institution. Just as in institutions built around high level athletics, kids in high-level entertainment are separated from their families and handled like commodities by media coaches, choreographers, producers and so on. Access to them becomes easier for predators through many vectors.What's happened Minegishi is already despicable. What we don't know about scares me more.     

Suzzan Blac: Where Art Is War

TRIGGER WARNING: The images created by artist Suzzan Blac are remarkably disturbing. For survivors of sexual violence in particular, they may be very difficult to view. Nevertheless, they are exquisitely created and hauntingly compelling. Ms. Blac, a survivor herself, uses oil paint to create surreal but remarkably lifelike images depicting women and children used in pornography, abuse and sexual torture. For me, her most brilliant achievement with a brush are the expressions in the faces she creates. The look in the eyes of her subjects- some victims and some predators- is truer to form than anything I've ever seen depicted. She is well worth discovering.

Mark Hasse, Lay At Rest, And With Honor

In the courtyard of the National Advocacy Center, the premier US training facility for prosecutors in Columbia, South Carolina, there is a monument to prosecuting attorneys who have been killed in relation to their official duties. A section of it is shown above, including the name of Sean Healy, a bright, rookie ADA in the Bronx, New York who was gunned down senselessly in August of 1990 near the same office I worked in on E. 161st Street.Fallen prosecutors constitue an honored and thankfully small group. Like judges, they aren't frequently targeted by the defendants they interact with in court. Most criminals consider the justice process a cost of doing business. Over the years I encountered men I prosecuted, whether successfully or not, in the communities where I lived and worked, sometimes months or years after the fact. The vast majority were polite and cordial, some actually friendly. Where they were concerned, it wasn't personal. And they were right; even in my work where facts can be horrific and emotions run high, it wasn't.I got one death threat in over ten years as a trial attorney that I thought was credible. It arose out of a misdemeanor domestic violence case I tried that was from my perspective unremarkable. I'm sure it had little to do with me as the prosecutor and more to do with the wandering focus of the defendant who threatened a few times to kill me, once on a DC street where I somehow crossed his path on the way to a hockey game with a friend. For a while I ignored it, until one day at a post-trial hearing where he stared at me until he caught my eye, then drew his index finger over his throat and pointed at me. At that point I told Randy Sengel, the Commonwealth's Attorney for the City of Alexandria, Virginia where I was then a junior ACA. Randy is a deeply respected, honorable public servant and brilliant man, but perhaps known most for his sphinx-like reticence and un-rattled, deadpan approach to just about everything. When I gave him the details, he told me it was rare but that it happened, and that I should call a detective nicknamed Scotty and make a report.But Scotty was a homicide detective, I pointed out."Yeah," Randy said with a shrug. "If someone threatens your life, that's what you do."I made the report, Detective Scott did his job, the guy eventually turned his focus elsewhere, and I'm still here. Mark Hasse, a veteran and apparently well-respected assistant district attorney from near Dallas, Texas, is not. Hasse was gunned down, execution style, outside of his office last week, very possibly in relation to his duties as a felony ADA. Investigators are searching desperately for answers, but eight days later they appear to remain elusive. He will be laid to rest tomorrow. Hasse appears to have been a valued prosecutor and a well-liked figure in both the courtroom and the community. If his service was cut short by murderers out to silence him and and thwart the process he sought to uphold, that act is indeed "an attack on our criminal justice system" as a Texas judge referred to it. Targeting those in the system, whether police, prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys or jurors, is the final assault on the rule of law.Of course, front line responders like police officers remain in far more danger. I drove extensively through Southern California this past week and was sobered to see how many highways are dedicated to members of the California Highway Patrol who died in the line. For now, at least, most of us in the system who practice law are far safer in our duties. Still, if Hasse was killed in the name of blurring the line between civil society and what lies beneath, then everyone- within Kaufman, Texas and far beyond- should be gravely concerned.  

Chris Brown Is Making Choices He Can Fully Control, And They're Getting Worse

I’ve noted before in this space that I lack the enviable crystal ball. But I’ll go out on a limb anyway: Chris Brown doesn’t have “anger management” issues in the way they are usually imagined. Most intimate partner abusers don’t. Indeed, they manage their anger extremely well. They incorporate it into their daily routines as a necessary adjunct of controlling, bullying and humiliating others as it suits them. It’s a wager on my part, but frankly one I’m willing to bet very big on: Chris Brown doesn’t hit people or intimidate them because he can’t help himself. He does it because it pleases and amuses him at the time he chooses to do it. Throwing chairs through windows (where the hell were the LA DA’s office or the probation officer in April of 2012 with a motion to revoke then, by the way?) might be more indicative of rage; the tantrum of a toddler who is unhappy with being to forced to acknowledge his actions. But even an act like that- absent compelling evidence to the contrary- is something that Brown chose to do, not one that he was willed otherwise to do. As I learned in 15 years of dealing with intimate partner violence, both sexual and physical, an “inability to maintain control” of one’s emotions is usually not the issue with domestic abusers. Instead, most use the tools of physical and emotional violence as keenly as a surgeon does a scalpel. And yet most court systems in the US and beyond continue to seek solutions to family violence under this “management” model, viewing the abuser as a somehow diseased and mostly helpless creature, trapped tragically in the claws of a relentless compulsion to beat and control weaker people around him who don’t react in ways that immediately satisfy him (or her, in same-sex relationships in particular). And worse, the management model often if unwittingly assumes some “partial responsibility” on the part of the victims who had the bad luck to land within the abuser’s sphere of influence and/or arms-reach. It’s a family problem, after all. Sure. Except that it isn’t. It’s an abuser’s problem. The family is usually relatively powerless and legally, socially paralyzed. Their only “problem” is what's being visited on them. Violence toward them is not of their making. Ever. The lie is that many if not most domestic disputes involve either or both 1) struggling perpetrators dealing with their “own issues,” and 2) at least “partially culpable” victims of threats, fists or worse. This might have fooled me as well had I not been bullied as a kid and tortured by older boys who I witnessed turn their predilections off switch-like were I lucky enough to have a supportive adult walk into the room. It might have made sense to me had I not been involved in the lives of hundreds of women, children and some men- both personally and professionally- who spent years in fear of perhaps emotionally damaged but still fully sentient and controlled beings who made the conscious choice to act cruelly and violently because it was what they wanted to do at the time. I’m not claiming that Brown is not an emotionally limited individual (for whatever reasons) or that nothing can be done to assist him in becoming a less violent man. I simply believe that, from what I can gather, Chris Brown is less a helpless pawn of anger and more an impulsive, likely manipulative, abusive individual who may not respond to anything but punishment in terms of behavior modification. And I can say with absolute certainly that Rihanna, whatever other character flaws or foibles she has borne up untill now, was utterly blameless with regard to what Brown did to her, in a car, with club-like fists and his teeth, in March of 2009. He was rightfully convicted of a serious felony, and he should be punished now with incarceration for not honoring the conditions of the remarkably lenient sentence he received for doing so. He continues to make choices, and they continue to get worse. It’s time to honor the law and limit them further.

Thank You, Edward I. Koch

I'm 45 and I've been in love twice. Once with a woman and once with a city. I fell in love with the woman at 42. I fell in love with the city around fourth grade. It is the city of my birth, but federal employment removed my father and mother, both native New Yorkers, to the Washington, DC suburbs before my third birthday.  Instead of navigating New York the way cousins and friends did through the hard years of the 70's and 80's, I loved it from afar, coveting visits and planning the eventual triumphant return as a Grown-Up that would be my destiny.The problem was that fourth grade, the year my heart opened and I knew love for the first time, was 1977. Haunted by a serial killer and crippled by a blackout, '77 was the year that, by most reasonable measurements, the object of my affections was declared dead.It wasn’t just the crime stats and socio-economic shifts of the 70’s that told me so.  It was also the mantra I heard incessantly through conversation aimed both at me and above my head, either in my father’s house or at the houses of my relatives back in the 212.  My ubiquitous childhood memories are of the spicy smell of tomato sauce in the kitchens, the mustiness of wood paneling in basement rec-rooms, and the god-awful, never-gonna-turn-it-around, descent into white-flight, urban blight, talk of the Death of the City. The past was great. The present was awful. The future looked worse. All that I loved about the city, I was told with the occasional wagging finger, had the depth and breadth of a yellowing photograph of smiling relatives dressed in black beside an impossibly large and equally black car. All that was good about it, I was told, was no longer.  Best to look toward the cities that had a future. Boise. Charlotte. Anywhere in California.  New York was gone, the leader of a band of lesser rust-belt cities like it, marching toward the graveyard in a funeral dirge.A giant of a mayor named Fiorello H. LaGuardia signed the birth certificates of my mother and father, one of whom was born to a man whose "usual occupation" was that of fruit peddler. They arrived in dark times, but to a great city. Mine was signed by John V. Lindsey. Lindsey called being mayor of New York "the second toughest job in America" and then seemed to demonstrate that difficulty by presiding over a slide that looked more like free fall by the time he dumped what was left into the lap of Abe Beame in 1973.But then there was Ed Koch, seizing control over the spiral in the winter of 1978, that frigid and dark reflection of the steaming, violent summer that preceded it. Koch loved New York unashamedly and unabashedly. His cheers for the city were louder in my ears than the head-shaking disparagement, the insistence on the superiority of the Sun Belt, and the cynical drone of disco. He made it okay for me to remain secretly in love, and I love him still for it.Mayors Giuliani and Bloomberg have reaped most of the credit for the relative Disneyland that is the New York City to which I have finally returned. Their initiatives, the work of visionaries like William Bratton, the relentless draw of New York come hell or high water, and host of other factors have quieted the dirges.Neither Koch nor his successors have been miracle workers; Intractable problems remain in the city I love, and I count among my proudest accomplishments the tiny role I was able to play battling crime in its poorest, still toughest borough. That brief, two-year stint as a Bronx ADA and New York City employee pales in comparison to the efforts of hundreds of colleagues and millions of fellow New Yorkers who continue to work, officially or unofficially, to make the city's heart beat as strong as ever.Still, I was grateful for the chance to do my part, and I remain eternally grateful to the man who gave me the secret inspiration as a child in love to do so. God bless and keep you, Your Honor. 

Want to Appear A Responsible Gun Owner? Don't Interrupt Testimony in A Legislative Hearing

The ones who shouted at him are the ones who demand we honor their rights as "responsible gun owners" to nearly unregulated ownership, sale, transport and use of semi-automatic weapons. Be very afraid.On December 14, 2012, Neil Heslin's life, as he knew it before that date, ended forever when his only son was murdered along with 19 other six and seven year-old children. In an effort to perhaps prevent another parent from bearing the scarcely imaginable burden he carries, Mr. Heslin appeared at a public hearing at the Connecticut General Assembly to ask that body to ban the the kind of weapons that blew apart his child with simple, finger-squeezing efficiency at the hands of a willing murderer. While not every grieving Newtown parent feels as he does, he is certainly not alone in seeking to control access to certain firearms as part of a much larger response to the abomination that was Sandy Hook and every other nonsensical mass-killing that has bloodied the US in recent years. As a part of his testimony, Heslin displayed a photograph of him and his now dead child, and made an emotional but dignified speech to a legislative committee. Apparently after expressing his opinion that "no one" (figuratively) could answer the question of why a person would need a military style weapon to defend his home or person, he was shouted at by observers in the gallery who "answered" his question with loud calls of "Second Amendment!" and "shall not be infringed!"But don't call it heckling."Heckling" it's been said today (by a contributor to the reliably liberal Daily Kos), was an unfair characterization of what gun rights advocates did to this appropriately recognized, testifying individual before a legislative committee. Rather, as at least Kos commenter Sarge from Seattle believes, the audience members were "goaded" into answering the supposedly non-rhetorical question that Heslin, "put" to the audience. The audience had a right to answer Heslin's question, goes his argument. Heslin "pushed things too far" by asking the question and then suggesting that he had received no viable answer.Garbage.The shouters were in the hearing room gallery. The Connecticut General Assembly publishes a guide to speaking at public hearings before legislators. No guidance is offered to testifying individuals about their duty to either not provoke or otherwise be ready to answer the shouts of observing gallery members. That's because observing gallery members aren't supposed to speak, ever, unless asked to do so, which I'm guessing would be unusual. For most of us, that's as obvious as breathing. One doesn't shout out one's opinions at a public hearing where one hasn't been recognized to speak. Unless, I suppose, one is a "2nd Amendment Enthusiast" who believes that his highly arguable interpretation of Constitutional law and apparent passion on the subject nevertheless trumps his (or her) basic duty as a citizen to observe decorum- let alone simple courtesy- during a public hearing before a centuries old state legislature with clearly established guidelines for citizen conduct.I suppose as well, that, given the willingness of these "defenders of the Constitution" to mock the very process that the Federal and Connecticut Constitutions mandate for civilized debate and policy formation, it's futile to point out how despicable it is to shout grossly over-simplified absolutes regarding guns at a grieving father who lost his only son to gunfire. Again, this goes without saying for most of us. But not for the proud purveyors of blindingly efficient tools of death and destruction.Yet these are the people who urge us to allow them to carry, wherever and whenever, the firearm of their choosing with minimal oversight.Were I still an ADA, I would rest my case.  

LA Archbishop Shown to be Complicit in Abuse Cover-Ups.

Released files from a lawsuit against the archdiocese of Los Angeles show that then Cardinal Roger Mahony was complicit in preventing the defrocking and criminal investigation/prosecution of abusive priests. Mahony's apology now may be sincere, but his efforts at shielding monstrously abusive priests over the decades most surely led to the suffering of countless more victims.

UNC Chapel Hill, Where Rape Could Be Like A Football Game

In 2007, alumna Annie Clark says she was given this analogy by a university administrator when she inquired about utilizing the school’s Honor Court to pursue charges against the man who raped her.  “If you look back on the game, and you’re the quarterback and you’re in charge, is there anything you would do differently?” I’m not a sports fan, but this is perhaps the most reprehensible and flawed comparison a person (let alone an administrator) could make to help a victim make sense of a life-altering sexual assault. It suggests, in essence, that she was an equally aware and equally equipped competitor for the conquest of her vagina. Had she made different calls, perhaps it would not have been compromised. Alas, he made the right calls, and won. The game is over and no one is at fault. Move on.  Current junior Landen Gambill was challenged by a fellow student serving on the Honor Court when she pressed charges against a boyfriend who had repeatedly sexually abused her. According to Gambill, the adjudicator asked during the trial, “Landen, as a woman, I know that if that had happened to me, I would’ve broken up with him the first time it happened. Will you explain to me why you didn’t?”Gambill’s credibility was also challenged because of suffering she endured due to her victimization; It was suggested she couldn't be believed because of clinical depression and a suicide attempt. Alas, neither those circumstances nor her hesitance to leave the boyfriend in a suitably prompt manner have any relevance to whether she was violated and the school’s honor code breached.  These examples of ignorance and coarseness, unfortunately part of the federal civil rights complaint against UNC, do not make the offenders bad people, or UNC a bad place. I earned a JD there, and while I despised the process of law school, I appreciated the experience of being at a truly great university, set in an idyllic but progressive college town.  The issue is the lack of knowledge student judicial officers and faculty advisors have with regard to the dynamics of sexual violence and how to fairly adjudicate sex cases. The typical circumstances surrounding college related sexual assault are particularly challenging. Most attacks involve alcohol consumption on the part of both parties. Almost all are perpetrated by offenders who know their victims and have identified them exactly because they’ll be vulnerable to myths and ignorance if they do report.  I’m not sure if it was this awareness that eventually led UNC to end the practice of adjudicating sexual assault cases through their Honor Court, but I’m glad they’ve done so. Professionals have a difficult enough time with these issues and more training is badly needed. It’s not realistic to expect student-based tribunals to handle them appropriately. There are student victims who would prefer to take their cases to the university’s disciplinary system for a number of reasons; it’s equally appalling when victims are questioned for not wanting to call “real police” after being assaulted, as if that choice is easy or holds any guarantee of a favorable outcome. Still, I think the negatives of asking students to adjudicate acts of violence against a school’s honor code outweigh the positives.  UNC’s reform of its Honor Court responsibilities is only one of the steps it apparently needs to take if the complaint is accurate, however. More disturbing are allegations that administrators pressured a dean of students to alter or falsify the number of on-campus sexual assaults for federally mandated reporting purposes. Colleges nationwide, fearful of their institutions being injured by unpleasant facts, are notorious for practices like that. UNC is shamed if it is doing so also. Further, administrators, faculty and campus leaders from the top down need to do better when responding to victimized students. A Start By Believing campaign would be a good first step as a replacement for asinine and hurtful football analogies.  No reforms will eliminate sexual violence at UNC or any other college. But real reduction is possible if the entire university community unites to create an environment where sexual violence is faced honestly and responded to compassionately. It shouldn't take a civil rights complaint to bring that about.

Sovereign Grace Ministries: Lawsuit Alleges Yet Another Institutional, Child Abuse Cover-Up

Sovereign Grace Ministries, known by some as SGM, is a family of churches, now based in Kentucky, adhering to extremely strict Biblical interpretations. Among them (according to critics who are themselves strict Christians but critical of the group) are both the authority of pastors and the primacy of men as leaders in religious and home life. They are being sued by several plaintiffs not far from where I grew up; the allegations are that former church leaders committed hands-on sexual and physical abuse, and also that they failed to respond to allegations appropriately, encouraged victims to forgive and submit to abusers, and engaged in a cover-up of various forms of abuse for decades.If the allegations are true, they should come as no surprise. Religious institutions of every stripe, particularly insular and ultra-strict ones, are far too often havens for predators. It's not that strict doctrine creates predators or "warps" otherwise decent people. Instead, the unbending control over adherents, distrust of civil authority and concern for the reputation of the institution allow for abusers who appear within the group (as they do within every group) to flourish. More disturbing still, these practices attract other abusers, drawn as most are to friendly environments.If critics are fair in their take on what went wrong at SGM for so long, then the leadership needs desperately to examine not only its common sense policies for protecting its children, but its far deeper spiritual underpinnings and doctrine. One of the plaintiffs alleges she was being physically and sexually abused by her father. When she alerted church leaders to her father's behavior, their response was, according to the suit, to tell her father of her allegations rather than a child protection agency. This apparently led to even more profound abuse. A reasonable conclusion for such a response is that the men she sought help from viewed her either as rebellious and lying, or truthful but bound to obey her father regardless. Perhaps they thought bringing her complaints to his attention would spur a "reconciliation" in the place they viewed most proper, meaning the father's home, where his word was family law and his authority could not be questioned- certainly not by a female child.I am not an apologist for strict Biblical interpretation, and certainly won't seek to explain the extreme lengths to which SGM seems to take it. I disagree with their belief that only men can lead spiritually or that wives are most godly when submitting to the will of their husbands, however benevolent. Regardless, it isn't their beliefs that are at issue; it's what those beliefs and practices may have unwittingly but effectively created within their midst. If the current leaders of SGM are to be believed, they find child abuse as abhorrent as anyone, and I have no reason to doubt them. Perhaps, (assuming they believe even some of the allegations) they are horrified to learn that child abuse could not only occur but grow cancer-like within an organization as faith-based and earnest for God's will as theirs. Or perhaps they knew more than they'll ever admit, but allowed their belief in their mission and the importance of their own "brand" to justify cover-up and continued victimization. But even if the most generous interpretation of what SGM's leadership believes now is true (that they abhor child abuse and are willing to work with civil authority to prevent and respond to it) they still have deep soul-searching to do that can and should shake some of their most core apparent beliefs. It is arguable, I suppose, as to whether a strict, doctrinal religious system involving male dominance and imposing pastoral authority can nevertheless effectively confront and deal with the inexorable fact of child abuse occurring from time to time within its midst. What is less arguable is that notions of male dominance, submission to authority and guarded insularity are insidious and time-honored siren songs to predators. These are the thorny questions SGM will have to answer as it moves forward. It will not be the first or last religious institution to do so.   

Alleged Gang Rape by Lloyd Irvin Students In D.C. Raises Questions About His Past

On New Year's Eve, two men who train at the Lloyd Irvin Martial Arts School outside of Washington DC, allegedly lured an intoxicated fellow mixed-martial arts (MMA) student from a DC club into the parking lot of a church and repeatedly, brutally raped her. The two have been in custody since and are making initial appearances in federal court this month. Irvin is himself an extremely well known and successful instructor in the MMA world, and posted an appropriate statement on the arrests a few days ago.What has others in the MMA world concerned, though, is the (still unconfirmed) possibility that Irvin himself was charged with rape in 1989 and acquitted, if he is the same person, because a jury believed he was impotent and unable to complete a sexual act. At least one popular MMA website has posted its argument as to why Irvin is very likely the same person charged while a 20 year-old college junior. What concerns them is less that Irvin may have been charged with rape more than 20 years ago. Rather, their concern is how Irvin might be deflecting attention from his own past and seeking to manipulate search engines by marketing self-defense rape seminars by purchasing a LloydIrvinRape.com domain name.Irvin has not affirmed or denied whether he is the same person charged back then. Even if he was, it doesn't mean he can't run a successful business now and even one including self-defense seminars. But as some of his observers and followers have pointed out, he should be clear on whether his own past might affect how he can deal with both the horrific crime allegedly perpetrated by his own students (on a fellow student) and his contributions to rape prevention going forward.

Rep. Phil Gingrey Wades Into the Todd Akin Comment Mess. And Intellectually Drowns

Phil Gingrey is, by any objective measure, an accomplished man. In addition to being a six-term Congressman from the influential and economically powerful Atlanta northwest suburbs, he has also been an obstetrician/gynecologist for almost 40 years. So his willingness to speak so recklessly and baselessly on a subject that may have cost a former colleague an election seems odd regardless of the safety of his seat and the friendliness of his audience.There were two parts to Gingrey’s remarks on Akin’s fateful gaffe. His first statement attempted to explain what Akin meant by the use of the term “legitimate,” as if no one theretofore had any idea. Eager to be helpful to no one, though, Gingrey offered that Akin was probably referring to that all too common situation where an embarrassed and frightened 15 year-old girl becomes pregnant and insists she was raped in order to cover for her shameful behavior. For two reasons, this grotesque addition of detail to Akin's already offensive and roundly rejected comments was disastrous: First, we already knew what Akin meant; his message, loud and clear, was that (in his view) too many women and girls are “crying rape” in order to obtain abortions, since many otherwise anti-choice voters find abortion more tolerable when pregnancy is the result of sexual assault. Second, Gingrey's specific example is no more reality-based than Akin’s more vague intimation that rape is regularly fabricated by devilish and/or desperate women who find themselves pregnant. Rape is reported falsely by women very rarely. There is zero reason to believe it is reported falsely specifically to obtain abortions in any more than minuscule numbers.  For Gingrey to supplement Akin’s already asinine comments with a reference to them only adds insult to injury. Gingrey’s second statement was simply, utterly, nonsensical, and there is no need for a medical degree to see why.  In it, he claims that Akin was “partly right” in asserting his “shut the whole thing down” characterization of the female reproductive system during a rape. Stress and adrenaline, the good doctor reminded us, can prevent ovulation; hence the advice to couples struggling to become pregnant to focus on stress reduction and relaxation. Pray tell though, Dr. Gingrey: What in God’s name does that fact- stress and a lack of relaxation over time- have anything to do with a trauma response that might occur during the unexpected and unplanned for “legitimate” sexual attack of a woman? Even Gingrey seemed to realize the foolishness of this comparison as the words tumbled from his mouth. He acknowledged in the next breath that ovulation occurring some hours before a traumatic event would make subsequent conception during experienced trauma irrelevant to any prior state of relaxation (and thus presumably Akin’s comments that much more stupid). Not deterred, though, Gingrey still ended with the now nakedly baseless assertion that Akin’s comments were “torn apart” by the media. Indeed, as if anything emerged from either Akin’s original comments or Dr. Gingrey’s support of them that was unfairly challenged. However mind-boggling Rep. Gingrey's "logic" or willingness to speak it might seem, the underlying instinct of Gingrey, Akin and their ilk to do so is less mysterious. Religiosity appears to demand from them explanations consistent with their beliefs regardless of scientific fact. So perhaps their belief in an attentive and just God begs the idea that an evil act will not produce the miracle of conception. It is, I suppose, a pleasant idea. But it’s an idea that is contrary to scientific fact. And rather than acknowledging its observable failure, men like Akin and Gingrey are instead willing to fuel it with another deeply offensive myth that only serves to further demonize the very women they claim to serve. Perhaps Akin, a non-physician, at least had ignorance as a defense to his career-ending remarks. What is Phil Gingrey’s excuse?