Melania Trump says Sexual Assault victims shouldn't report unless they have evidence

[Neo-Scholastic]

…there is no such thing as “making too big a deal” out of rape culture. Either the culture is actively working toward reducing the number of sexual assaults and the stigma of sexual assault, or it’s not. Under the current administration, it’s not.

The Obama administrations title IX guidelines have produced kangaroo courts in colleges and universities resulting in academic discipline, including expulsions, of male students on the filmiest of accusations. Correcting this unjust overreach and abuse is not the same as stigmatizing sexual assault. IMHO there must surely be ways to encourage and assist women who have been sexually assaulted without turning it into a zero-sum game that increases the risk of men being falsely accused. We can have both/and instead of either/or.

You don't think rape culture is much of a thing. That's what contributes to it, whether you realize it or not.

IMO the malevolent presence of a rape culture is not as obvious to me as it is to you. It shares an insidious vagueness with another noxious phrase, “black attitudes.” It’s an ill-defined box into which people can put pretty much anything they want to vilify or bend to promote political aims. As such, I am very skeptical of attributing criminal sexual assault to other broad ambiguous concepts such as so-called toxic masculinity. Is the thug role glorified by hip-hop music responsible for gang-violence? I don’t think that likely. Even if artistic presentations of thuggishness were a contributing factor, I would be inclined to assign it a minor role.

At the same time I do not deny the possibility that certain cultural attitude can indeed dramatically encourage rape. Having opportunities to rape the wives and daughters of ancient Rome’s enemies was used as an incentive to encourage voluntary conscription. But his is several orders of magnitude above using innocuous proverbs like “boys will be boys” to justify young male penchants for getting, dirty, rough-housing, and aggressive role-play, i.e. cops & robbers, king of he hill, etc. I see more harm in going against 300,000 years of evolutionary programming than recognizing broad generalizations, positive and negative, about masculinity and femininity.

IMO characterizing opposing strategies as slut-shaming and unconditionally believing all accusations serves no useful purpose. It seems too many people debating the issue are relying on intuitive but dubious stereotypes. I do not know if being a “woman of easy virtue” actually carries an increased risk of victimization. Similarly, I do not know if social acceptance of male promiscuity allows some men to justify violence towards women. Maybe, maybe not. There seem to be good arguments for the opposite. Naïve and prudish girls could be inclined to misinterpret the advances of players as harassment – the same advances that would get them slapped by more sexually confident women. Socially awkward boys might use violence to overcome their fears, whereas men who are secure in their masculinity can slough-off rejections.

In a less sexually promiscuous culture wedding rings would serve as more reliable indicators of consent than tentative grasps and inviting whispers during casual encounters. Men’s crude boasting would be met with peer contempt while restraint during temptation would be esteemed. I think it is clear that claims of not having given consent would be more readily accepted if outward signs of consent were expected before engaging in sexual activity. I also think that if secular culture treated sexuality with more respect; Trump’s vulgar locker room talk would not have been so easily dismissed.

These are very unpopular positions today and conservatives are ridiculed for these supposed old-fashioned virtues even though IMHO such socially valuable attitudes can be restored without the moralizing condemnation and sexual repression of the Victorian era. We can still learn from the so-called sexual revolution (like demystifying female orgasm or dispelling unrealistic expectations about male libido) without succumbing to its excesses.

…we just had over half of the GOP state that they believe Brett Kavanaugh should still get to be SCJ even if he DID commit sexual assault.

The belief that a robust and fair criminal justice system does not punish people their entire lives for juvenile crime is NOT condoning rape any more than allowing reformed felons to secure gainful employment and housing condones robbery or man-slaughter.

The president of the United States is contributing to a rape culture right now, by 1)mocking alleged victims in front of large audiences, and 2) perpetuating false narratives about the length of time victims take to come forward.

-my numbering-

Yes, 2) is a false narrative and ignorant. He has no excuse. As for 1) apart from his tone of voice, Trump presented actual facts that came out during Ford’s testimony which was at best vague and inconsistent. And as for Trump’s mocking, of better or worse, social conservatives do not take Trump’s rhetoric seriously, perhaps because leftists have trained us to ignore theirs by their calling good and decent Republican politicians, like Bob Dole, Mitt Romney and John McCain, misogynists and racists.