Dear George Will – Let’s Get Real about “Real Rape” and Its Prevalence on Campus

I didn’t leave the factory without the math chip being installed. But, frankly, I have not found it as necessary in serving the needs of the persons and communities around me until just now.

George Will, in his June 6 column for the Washington Post’s website (you’ll find it here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html), draws the ire of many in the sexual assault victims’ advocacy community by using sexual assault statistics as a means for condemning the federal government’s continuing intrusion into all matters public and private alike. He’s free to confront expansive government all he wants. But I do object to his misguided and inaccurate marginalization of those who are being objectified, exploited, oppressed, and destroyed by the continued pattern of sexual violence on American college campuses.

He suggests that what he perceives to be over-reporting of sexual assault (i.e., “We’re just making this up,” is what I understand him to claim.) is a result of the fact that rape victims enjoy “a coveted status that confers privileges” with the result that “victims proliferate.” Well, I would agree that victims continue to proliferate. But it is because of marginalization and shaming like that in his op-ed piece more so than it is by throngs of young women eagerly seeking to “join the club” by experiencing sexual assault.

If George Will is right about the statistics (which would depend upon the definitions used by those collecting the statistics—specifically, he mentions the Ohio State University officials to whom just 98 “sexual assaults” were reported “in the years 2009 to 2012”), then we should accept his assertion that the claim is spurious that “one in five women is sexually assaulted while in college.” But only if his math checks out (and only if he isn’t playing sleight-of-hand by conflating “real rape” and “sexual assault” statistics and, since he doesn’t footnote as an "opinion writer," it’s impossible to tell).

His calculations: 98 assaults reported, taken to be 12% of the assaults which actually occurred. Thus, 817 assaults total among a population of 28,000. He gets that as 2.9% rather than 20% of the population. Now, in any “averaging,” anomalies abound. It could be that Ohio State is so far outside the norm as to be roughly 85% safer than most other college campuses. It could also be that there are some missing statistics in Will’s calculations.

For one thing, can we count to four? No. We’ve been out of school too long, apparently. Statistics from Ohio Statue University for the “academic years 2009-2012” (2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12 – for a total of 3 years) is not the same as “for the calendar years 2009-2012” (4). Multiply the statistics for the three selected years (which are, remember, suspiciously low) by 33%. Still, we’re now only talking about 130 assaults, instead of the 98 that Will represents in those “four” years in which, "some claim," there are one-in-five college women assaulted.

On this next matter, though, I have to admit to moving beyond the statistics available. I don’t know if every sexual assault counts in the eyes of Ohio State University officials. But knowing the anecdotal evidence from campus safety officers elsewhere and the vast difference between those and the “officially reported” statistics that show zero reports in categories for which there were definitely incidents on a particular campus, I believe I can be allowed to make the assumption below.

So, consider that there are multiple categories of sexual assault that do not involve the physical penetration of a penis into a vagina. What percentage do we assign to “real rape” as opposed to these other categories? To use an illustration from my previous post, “The Euphemisms of Sexual Assault,” being subjected to an “inappropriate touch” by someone who had become “overzealous” would be unlikely to generate a police report in the campus office that must also share those statistics with potential students and their parents. Is the physical act of penetration completed in 50% of all assaults? Hardly. Is it as much as a quarter of the time? Not according to the counselees who’ve shared their stories with me.

For the sake of the math, let’s assume that the rate of “real rape” is as high as 20% of all sexual assaults committed, only against women, and we'll also limit ourselves to the four year period Will alludes to (though we’ll actually count to four, not three). If we’re right about the assumptions we’re forced to make by Will’s nebulous terminology, then there would be 130 rapes reported. If that figure represents, as he notes, 12% of the rapes which actually occurred, then instead of 817, we’re looking at 1086. Using our highly subjective evaluation that as many as one-fifth of sexual assaults involve “real rape,” then every four years at Ohio State University, on average, a total of 5430 women students should expect to be sexually assaulted.

Will does get one statistic right. Ohio State’s website shows a total enrollment on their Columbus campus of 57,466, with a male/female ratio of 50/50. So, of the 28,000 women about whom he writes: only 19.4% will be victims of sexual assault, not 20%. At least not at Ohio State University during the years that Will selected for his calculations.

Thank you, George. We stand corrected. But we're still not going to run out and try to join the privileged class of rape victims. Far too many of us are already there.

The Euphemisms of Sexual Assault

Assaulted, but apparently hesitant to say so.

I only know who Sarah Hyland is because of one of those sidebar links next to an unrelated, very cute and charming video shared by a Facebook friend. The linked article says she’s an actress in a popular television series in which, according to the Internet Movie Data Base, she plays a naïve and gullible minor. Wikipedia calls her character “the stereotypical ditzy teenage girl.”

More important to me than all this, for multiple reasons, is that she was, according to the report, “inappropriately grabbed” by an “overzealous fan.”

The article is by “an Associate Editor (who is) still in awe that she gets to write about and interview pop stars for a living.” If you were to Google the incident, you would find a fuller portrayal of the event than is expressed even in the further details within the article itself. You’d also likely find that Sarah Hyland has a boyfriend, Matt Prokop, who chose to be clearer about the “inappropriate touch” by “a fan” than Hyland apparently felt she could be in her missive to the Twitterverse. I might have refrained from some of his language—but I think I would have expressed an all-too-similar sentiment in the heat of the moment. (Though I would have suggested it occur while the attacker was under Hospice care, of course.)

Knows what assault is, and says so.

Appropriately, the 29-year-old adult male who assaulted an actress portraying an especially vulnerable minor was not killed, but merely arrested. The actress was shaken sufficiently to cancel the remainder of her appearance. The boyfriend was clear regarding his impressions of the assault as well as his intentions toward the attacker.

So, what’s not clear here? To illustrate that, let me digress for just a moment.

Without including any identifying details, let me say that I have, on several occasions, with multiple clients/counselees/parishioners, been asked to offer my opinion on whether the sexual assault they had experienced was, in fact, something other than “inappropriate” at the hands of someone who had become “overzealous.” My perception has been, in each case, that there really was no question in the mind of the person who had been assaulted about what they had experienced. What was unclear, however, was whether anyone, anywhere, at any time would give them permission to say aloud: I was raped.

(Re-reading that last sentence aloud, shouting at the top of your lungs whenever you see italics, may approximate my tone. While typing it, I feared momentarily for the structural integrity of my laptop.)

So, perhaps having cleared that up, there is one thing that remains unclear to me.

Uncertain what assault is, or at least whether to say so.

How does a young and admittedly awestruck “Associate Editor” remember more carefully that she is not only writing about human beings, but that she is writing to human beings? I hope that others who have influence in her life may help her toward this. Because, in fact, not only is she writing to just any human beings, she is writing to primarily young, impressionable human beings, some of whom, quite clearly, already struggle to hope that someone, somewhere, and soon will give them permission to say:

I was not “inappropriately touched” by someone who became “overzealous.” I was assaulted by an attacker, and it was wrong.

Ideas Are Powerful (but they need to get traction in order to go anywhere)

Despite the vanity plates, you can be sure that this is not my Corvette. How? For one thing, it has a fish on the back of it. I used to put symbols of my faith in Jesus Christ on the backs of my cars. Then I thought about my driving. I’m much better about it now, but I’m still not as sanctified behind the wheel as I would like to be.

Putting Power to Pavement

But the Vette does illustrate a point frequently discussed on Top Gear (at least on the BBC version that I watch) and in Automobile magazine (where Jean Jennings’ crew simultaneously inspires my vehicular fantasies as well as my aspirations to verbal excellence). The point often made is that, in the industry’s current escalation of horsepower output, useable power requires a chassis, gearbox, and especially tires for the traction needed to actually go faster. Some powerful cars, for example, go very well in a straight line, but are hopeless in the corners. Others need sophisticated electronics to prevent even seasoned drivers from simply obliterating their tires within a few yards of the starting line. The Camaro parked at my house is evidence that, in automotive considerations, there is such a thing as too much power—if not for the sake of the tires, then at least for the temptation it embodies.

When it comes to the power of ideas, however, I am entirely in favor of unlimited escalation. The world around us is in desperate needs of better ideas. But for those ideas to go anywhere, they need to get traction somehow. And whether in my own writing or that of others whose ideas I admire (when I can figure out where they’re going), there seem to be some “weak links” in the verbal equivalence of “putting power to pavement.”

Lighting Up the Tires

In my factory-original state, I was equipped with excellent exposure to and training in syntax, grammar, and especially vocabulary. I have been blessed to add to that some formal training in logic and rhetoric, along with a breadth of education that allows me to compare concepts from a variety of interesting (to me) fields of study, especially with regard to pastoral theology. But the addition of more powerful ideas and the exacting vocabulary in so many fields has actually lessened my effectiveness in some ways.

I continue to insist that “Words mean things,” for instance. To “say what you mean and mean what you say” requires a discipline to find the word that signifies your idea, and to use only that word for that idea. The challenge, however, is that in combining ideas from varied disciplines I use vocabulary that is specific for each, but incomprehensible to others. And, of course, from time to time, I just like to show off my vocabulary in the equivalent of “lighting up the tires.” The resulting cloud of blue smoke serves to imply that behind the incomprehensible jargon there are some overwhelmingly powerful ideas…whatever they may be.

Oil on the Track

But sometimes, what we mean isn’t what we say; and what we say isn’t what we mean. For the sake of manipulation, often the smoke comes complete with mirrors—magically transforming one idea into another, motivating decisions, behaviors, or at least an emotionally-charged outrage utterly divorced from reality.

For example, in a widely-read online Christian magazine, their “Political Opinion Editor” offered that God’s word doesn’t mean what it says in some cases; there must be exceptions when its clear statements contradict common sense. Specifically, he expressed that Romans 13:1-7 “only applies when civic law does not infringe upon God’s law” when we are told to “submit to the government.” In this case, the idea is popularly described by many as “submit,” “obey,” or “conform to” governmental demands, which are, themselves, often misrepresented. (e.g., The writer implies that the government will soon order me to kill unborn children and enter into a same-sex relationship, presumably after, or perhaps immediately before my divorce—but he doesn’t address that specifically.)

But the passage to which he refers is not at all confused or vague in the major English translations of scripture. In the King James, New American Standard, New International, and English Standard versions. In each case it reads, “be subject” (or in the NASB, “be in subjection to”). Of course, this doesn’t allow for the dramatic fantasy that scripture contradicts itself, or at least that it sets up an ethical quandary. It does not, in fact, demand that we obey scripture’s command to obey human government, even when doing so requires us to disobey other commands in God’s word. We do not need to abrogate scripture’s integrity for the sake of common sense. In context, the Apostle Paul describes a just government clearly contrasting the experience of the Christians to whom he is writing. Yet still he tells them to “be subject” to the government that had already imprisoned him, beaten him, and threatened to kill him (which, according to later tradition, they ultimately accomplished).

This teaching violates common sense and offends our sensibilities. But so does a great deal of the rest of scripture. Worse, it is entirely consistent with a view of God’s sovereignty above and beyond secular rulers—using them, and the consequences they impose on Christ’s followers as well, to accomplish His purposes. In short, “be subject” means that when any subordinate authority commands me to violate God’s commands, I allow them to subject me to the consequences they impose when I choose not to do so. (Check Acts 4:19 where Peter and John consider “whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God.”) And saying that the passage doesn’t mean what it says doesn’t change the fact that it says exactly what it means.

Discerning Dialogue, Rather than Antagonistic Argument

If our ideas are to get traction and go somewhere, then the vocabulary we use cannot be blurred and distorted. For the sake of clarity, it may be necessary to first discuss what we assume are unambiguous definitions. But first, it is also necessary that we establish that our intention is communication for the sake of mutual understanding. Not that we will necessarily agree on anything but terminology. But we can hardly expect agreement on our ideas when there is no commonality in the words we use to express them. At the very least, we will come to understand where, and perhaps even why we actually disagree (if, in fact, we really do disagree).

Like “boys with toys,” though, sometimes the goal has nothing to do with getting anywhere at all. When that’s the case, feel free to step back, watch the show if you’d like. But acknowledge that “Yes, I see that you can turn tires into smoke. Still, I was hoping we’d be going somewhere with your ideas.”

Labyrinthine Transparency and Integrity’s Thin Veneer : What do you say to whom, and when?

I admire my protégé’s transparency, despite it being well-guarded: “I’ll give you an honest answer to any question you have.” It took me a while to recognize the secrecy that allowed, and a little longer to find both the courage and opportunity to say so: “You seem very certain that no one will know what to ask.” And then I asked. And I got answers, openly and honestly.

Others, whose positions I am supposed to respect, admire, and aspire to, have also answered my questions, but only by claiming that their integrity prevents them from answering truthfully.

Administrators of my alma mater (now one of my several employers) have repeatedly declined to pursue Jesus’ prescription for resolving conflict and reconciling relationships (Matthew 18:15-18) on the grounds that Simpson University is “a business providing educational services,” and cannot, therefore, pursue these Biblical processes (even though they are written into their various handbooks for faculty, students, etc.). Balancing scriptural authority against the requirements of California’s state employment laws is a debatable practice, but a challenge commonly faced by Christian non-profits.

Then in February, responding to complaints that they violated the requirements of California’s state employment laws, the same administration has claimed that they are exempt from those standards. As a Christian University, they claim, they apply Biblical processes that should not be held to the same standards as other businesses providing educational services. This position, too, could be debated.

What is not debatable, however, is that two mutually exclusive claims cannot be held as simultaneously true. Simpson University’s administration either does or does not hold to scriptural authority, and it either is or is not accountable to California state employment laws. But they cannot claim they are “none of the above” on the grounds that they are “all of the above.”

So, I admire the transparency of a single mother working to overcome generations of poverty, exploitation, and addiction, and a lifetime of abuse in her family of origin, then a string of foster homes, and more recently by men who found her susceptible to their demands. At the same time, I find reprehensible the duplicity of respected family men holding terminal degrees, receiving six-figure salaries, and presuming upon ninety-two years of heritage to assuage their fears of the transparency that integrity requires.

Simpson in Seattle, in San Francisco, in Redding

 What brought all this to mind? A call from a local reporter. To verify her upcoming series of stories on Simpson University, she asked, “Is there anything I’ve misquoted? Is there anything you want to change about what you’ve said?” She had quoted me accurately, but there will likely be consequences to what I have said. And yet, as difficult as it was to hear her repeat them, not only do I still believe them to be true, I have already said them to those administrators who surely would have corrected me if they could.

The transparency required of integrity means that I have to say what is true, but also that what is true needs to be said.

How I Helped to Kill Trayvon Martin (and countless others)

During our son’s elementary years, we felt the need to define certain “Rules of Engagement” regarding the bullying taking place at his school. “If you can walk away, walk away. If you have to run, there’s no shame in that. But if they keep you from getting away, aim directly for their nose. Whichever way they turn, you’ll hit something that will hurt them. But keep hitting them only until you can get away. Stick to the Rules of Engagement, and we’ll have your back, whatever consequences the school might impose on you.”

The Rules of Engagement worked well. But they were based on an assumption that there was a responsible adult (a pair of us, actually) who would step in and set things right, even when later policies of “zero tolerance” penalized all parties involved in any altercation, punishing even those who failed to prevent themselves from being bullied. In most communities, however, that trust, that we could acquiesce temporarily to various injustices because someone would eventually set things right, has eroded. In others, that trust has been entirely destroyed by similar tragedies, even where those are less conducive to the simplistic divisions preferred by the publicity-mongers.

As trust diminishes, it makes way for fears that many find quite justified. Should a young black man be afraid of being “in the wrong neighborhood?” Racial profiling is not just a matter of traffic stop harassment or stop-and-frisk policies. The ongoing bias in charges filed and sentences imposed are well-documented. Should homogenous neighborhoods keep watch over those who “clearly don’t belong here?” The fears that prompt Community Patrols and Neighborhood Watches are exploited by law enforcement agencies in support of their pleas for more budget and personnel support. Here, in the Fall River Valley of Northern California, a former sheriff quoted his deputies' response time as between thirty and forty-five minutes, so long as the call was received between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. Outside those hours, there were no officers available to handle calls from our area. What he intended as a fund-raising ploy became fodder for justifying vigilantism.

How did these factors affect the events of February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida? Were both parties mindful of the history of racism, paranoia, community self-protection, and the justifications for deadly force under Florida law? We don’t know. None of us served on the Zimmerman trial jury. The evidence offered, at best, omitted any testimony to Martin’s state of mind prior to the incident. We cannot judge the level of fear each would have felt. Blacks in many areas have rightly come to expect something other than justice. Gated communities with neighborhood watches have rightly come to expect limited response from law enforcement. In these and other groups there is no longer a secure assurance that anyone will step in and set things right. Increasingly, any sense of security and justice is being left to us as individuals and communities to negotiate for ourselves.

Add to this “make-my-day,” “stand-your-ground” environment the desire for a more immediate gratification of our human nature, and a do-it-yourself-justice attitude is likely to prevail. Thankfully, in my son’s case, he addressed that temptation humorously over the family dinner table, rather than during a parental visit to school administrators. He asked permission before requiring forgiveness: “Dad? That kid that’s being mean to Sarah? Would it be alright to tell him, ‘Take hold of my wrist, and don’t let me go, no matter what happens?’” I assured him that, while technically fitting the rules of engagement, he could only count on my support if he were reactively addressing an actual danger, not intentionally provoking a confrontation.

Again, we cannot know which of these (or any others) may have been the attitude of either Martin or Zimmerman. We do know that many benefit from increasing our distrust, if not hatred of one another through harangue and diatribe. At best, they ignore, but perhaps willfully provoke the rising dangers of these fears, calculating the potential profits from more such confrontations in the future. I want to condemn them for doing so. But, am I numbered among them? I don’t pursue their publicity and celebrity. I try hard to never exploit personal tragedies in support of any stand I would take. And I have an accountability structure around me to, hopefully, ensure that should I cross those lines—I get called on it very quickly.

http://www.standupforkindness.com/kindness-pledge/

So, why do I feel culpable for this and other lesser known confrontations? When I cannot assure my community that someone will step in and set things right (or even try), I bear responsibility for perpetuating their fears as well as their desire to secure themselves through whatever means they choose. I help to perpetuate the systems and structures that diminish their security, even as they feed off of the fears engendered by each new report of each new confrontation. In fact, in the absence of past confrontations to report, even small-town papers will prophesy future doom “if the appropriate steps are not soon taken.”

All this occurs even within almost perfectly homogenous communities. With regard to the Martin-Zimmerman incident, fear and distrust between two individuals of “perceptible ethnicity” may have been heightened on that basis. Their minority status, however, most certainly provided opportunity to exploit this tragedy as a platform for racializing further what is better seen as an endemic system creating similar incidents within, between, and most certainly against the communities we are called to serve. The many similar tragedies since February 26, 2012 have not drawn similar attention. These have occurred among those whose differences are not so easily stereotyped, and thus will not be so publicly exploited. Yet it is the fact that they occur, not their potential for exploitation and analysis, which should motivate us to more consistently structure just relationships into and among our communities. They need to know that someone is committed to step in and set things right.

Another Tragedy of Trayvon and George

By way of invitation to a Portland area forum on the Trayvon Martin case (details available here)), Dr. Paul Louis Metzger asks “Why did this case receive so much attention, especially while other similar cases never got so much as a mention?” From my vantage point, isolated at the time in the mountains of Northern California, dependent upon mass media for details of what I first noticed in social media postings, I can only offer observations and conclusions bounded by those limitations. But here they are.

I first saw mention of the shooting in someone’s vehement reaction to Geraldo Rivera’s infamous claim that part of Martin’s attire, a hoodie, was responsible for his death. Mass media’s habit of covering media’s coverage almost immediately raised an impenetrable fog around any hope of finding facts about the case online. Too few quaintly preserve the ancient journalistic endeavor in our country: piecing together a story with some congruence to the events being reported. This archaic ideal, however, has little place in the competition to be the first to report any new sliver of conjecture by anyone, even when that conjecture is not being made by witnesses, law enforcement, or expert observers, but simply by another media-staff commentator weighing in on “facts” not yet in evidence.

So, one reason for the attention to this case appeared to be nothing more than our macabre glee at having fresh bodies to feed to the selachian (“of or pertaining to sharks”) demands of the news-cycle. But there were at least two other details that prompted the furtherance of the feeding frenzies.

Trayvon Martin, and to a lesser extent (as a Prussian-surnamed, self-identifying Hispanic) George Zimmerman, provided a concrete metaphor for the fears of blacks, Hispanics, and whites alike. This fear of “the other” (xenophobia, as discussed previously in this blog) comprises the potential for such deadly misunderstandings on the basis of preconceived stereotypes. The logic seems self-evident that “the stranger” should fear me at least as much as I fear them. And should some chance exchange inadvertently provoke a confrontation, then I should be prepared to do to them as they, I imagine, would do to me, should I appear ready to do it to them. Add to this the minority status of both parties, and for many white Americans the potential for discussion was opened more broadly. (This is likely the primary factor that kept this story at the top of the editorial priorities, above other, similar cases in the interim.)

According to Herschell Gordon Lewis, there are four great marketing motivators (some of us prefer the term “manipulators”). In his estimation, as I recall, greed, guilt, and exclusivity follow well behind fear as a means to influence others. And self-promoters who feed on our society’s fears in order to raise ratings, sell books, fund studies, and otherwise scavenge the carrion of tragedy were in abundance for weeks and months after the death of Trayvon Martin. Their number includes activists as well as commentators, news-readers as well as politicians, and, too frequently, religious leaders as well as regular citizens. But before we decry the growing school of sharks, we should remember that the profits they divide among them do come from somewhere. And it is those sources of their resources who bear responsibility for the actions we support. Real consequences in real lives result from our decision to watch incessantly, trying to be among the first to share, or like, or tweet, or otherwise prattle on about whatever suppositions are painted across the backdrop of the next new tragedy.

There is much more to be said, no doubt, about the reasons for such attention being raised over the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman story. I pray that the forum in Portland will be fruitful in recognizing a variety of other issues as well that may diminish the potential for similar tragedies in the future. Among the issues addressed, however, should be my personal culpability (and yours, too) for the consequences of continuing to consume “news-like products.”

Human beings are regularly distilled into fuel for fact-less fires signaling only the same, dangerously stereotypical perspectives. And when there are too few suppositions to report, we watch reports of what others have either chosen or failed to report regarding the too-few suppositions already available. Know this, though: some will base their actions tomorrow on the fears we have helped to instill in them today. Lest we sacrifice even more of our brothers and sisters to the gods of technological gossip, we are overdue to disconnect ourselves from this media machine.