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Sexual Assault & Sexual Misconduct in the CF

Brad Sallows said:
"It would be a trite answer, but it's because we're biologically wired in a certain way and there will be those who believe it is a reasonable thing to press themselves and their desires on others. It's not the way it should be," he said.

I see nothing to disagree with:
1) we're biologically wired in a certain way
2) there will be those who believe it is a reasonable thing to press themselves and their desires on others
3) It's not the way it should be

And my troops are biologically wired to execute their prisoners immediately following the assault because their adrenaline levels are, like, way up there and after all who can judge, like, anyone that stoked, right?

:sarcasm:
 
Actually, many of them are. What keeps them from doing so is effective discipline.
 
I'm just gonna C&P my reply from elsewhere, regarding Gen. Lawson's comment:


I would contend it's not entirely inaccurate. Starting from the premise that one beleives in natural selection, we are biologically identical to humans some tens of thousands of years ago, where might quite literally made right, and where our (human) recently evolved intelligence was coupled with statistically greater physical strength in males, yet untempered by our most recent hundred years of intellectually based social progress. Biologically we are the same creatures who would kill other males and seize females as prizes. Humanity, fortunately, has developed well past the point where most consider this consciounable or acceptable. I firmly beleive that every human being is of equal worth and dignity. But to say that we are 'hard wired' carries a degree of biological truth.

Let's not kid ourselves. The military has some fucking neanderthals. It's an organization that simultaneosuly attracts some of the best of Canadian society, and some of our boderline failures who are canny enough to see a solid career opportunity that can accommodate modest intellects with much to be modest about. Sexual abuse and harassment is a SOCIETAL problem. The military is at once a microcosm of society, and a distillation of some portions thereof. We cultivate and nurture controlled violence, and that will attract the same alpha males who excel at wielding coercive force, but who must be carefully disciplined in many other respects.

I'm not saying this as a slur on my own sex or gender, it just is what it is. I've met and worked with many shitty women too, some of whom were atrocious human beings. It's not just a male thing. But shittiness in males is correlated with a statistically much more abundant physical strength and social dominance. So yeah, there will be problems of the 'boys will be boys' variety. My take? Neuter them. And if you're a leader in the military who fails to act, you're a miserable failure at your job and should be fired with disgrace. But no amount of prevention can cure all disease, we must be realistic about it.

General Lawson spoke candidly and with a certain degree of reckless ballsiness that I respect. He called it like it is and of course was only partially quoted out of political expediency. But I watched the whole interview and he is not out to lunch.
 
SeaKingTacco said:
What keeps them from doing so is effective discipline.
For the WIN!

Well, THAT didn't take long - "Statement by the Chief of the Defence Staff"....
“I apologize for my awkward characterization, in today’s CBC interview, of the issue of sexual misconduct in the Canadian Armed Forces. Sexual misconduct in any form, in any situation is clearly unacceptable.

“My reference to biological attraction being a factor in sexual misconduct was by no means intended to excuse anyone from responsibility for their actions.

“I am committed, alongside Canadian Armed Forces leadership, to addressing the issue of sexual misconduct through an action plan based on the ten recommendations provided in Madame Deschamps’ report.”
 
I feel for the CDS, no matter how or what he say's on the subject it will be taken out of context by some and he'll be beaten over the head with it.
 
jollyjacktar said:
I feel for the CDS, no matter how or what he say's on the subject it will be taken out of context by some and he'll be beaten over the head with it.

I don't.  It's his job to manage these issues and be the face of the CF when facing the public as well as managing the message.  He didn't mange the message very well last night.  At all.  Blame the handlers, blame the media.  Ultimately it's on him.  I don't envy his job and I respect the office he holds but that was a complete failure. 
 
Crantor said:
I don't.  It's his job to manage these issues and be the face of the CF when facing the public as well as managing the message.  He didn't mange the message very well last night.  At all.  Blame the handlers, blame the media.  Ultimately it's on him.  I don't envy his job and I respect the office he holds but that was a complete failure.

That's quite a shot from the cheap seats.......Brihard got it about right.

The CDS mouthing poilite platitudes does nothing the help the situation and diminishes any structure to stop the Sexual Assault & Sexual Misconduct being done by members of the CF.

Understanding the motivations and mentality of the culprits has the chance to reduce the  occurrences...
 
GAP said:
That's quite a shot from the cheap seats.......Brihard got it about right.

The CDS mouthing poilite platitudes does nothing the help the situation and diminishes any structure to stop the Sexual Assault & Sexual Misconduct being done by members of the CF.

Understanding the motivations and mentality of the culprits has the chance to reduce the  occurrences...

Unfortunately the  people who sit in the cheap seats will have to put up with the stares and comments on their way to work this morning because of those comments.

The fact that there was an almost immediate apology is telling.  The reaction across the country is telling as well and this only fuels those that have a gripe against the CF to begin with.

I agree that polite platitudes do nothing to help but what was said during that interview certainly didn't help the situation either.  Quite the opposite.
 
He made us look like animals.  I feel incredibly let down and betrayed. He is the face of the CF and should look after our interests. Instead he threw us to the wolves.
 
In my view, it is not the job of a CDS to mouth polite platitudes. That is for politicians.

The CDS doesn't get to talk directly to his real constituency, the uniformed personnel of the CF, very often. He should avail himself of those rare opportunities to come across as he should: The CF's top leader - not as a politician. Be clear. Be direct. Come clean and inspire. Those should be his leitmotivs.

How easy would it have been to say:

1. In the profession of arms, we are all brother and sisters in arm, and to do anything to your brother and sister that you wouldn't do in your real family is totally unacceptable.

2. This said, we are dealing with young and healthy Canadian men and women and so we know that there will always be some romantic entanglements. As long as they are at the appropriate time and place and between consenting adults, members of the CF enjoy the same rights and freedom as all other Canadians.

3. However, any unwanted or inappropriate action is unacceptable and members are now being reminded throughout the CF that such behaviour will not be tolerated and will be dealt with through our disciplinary system.

4. Many years ago, at the time of the introduction of women in combat, we expected some difficulties and we put in place policies and practices to deal with the situation and adapt the then prevailing mentalities. After 10 to 15 years, we evaluated that we had the situation under control. We were wrong.

5. As Mme Deschamps' report just showed, we have left our guard down too long and the problem has made a come back. With the help of her recommendations, we will now bring things back to where they should be.

6. I note from various media reports, such as the ones on the alleged "rape" culture of colleges, of "date" rape on the dating scene or your own CBC celebrities scandals that there is a resurgence of these type of deportment in Canada's youth, not just in the military. I am, however comforted by Mme Deschamp's finding that the problem in the CF is nearly absent in the older and higher ranked members of the forces. This tells me that the message we sent many years ago has sunk in and that there is a learning curve.

7. We will now make sure our members are put on that learning curve earlier in their career and that the curve is made much steeper so they get to the acceptable standard of deportment faster.
 
 
OGBD for CDS. That's the kind of motivational but tough talk members of the CAF need to hear.
 
People know it's wrong but they do it anyways.  Let's throw them in military prison for 2 years then punt them from the CF.  If it's found that a leader was aware of the situation and didn't properly handle it demote them.

 
I have to agree with Crantor on this being a failure on his part.

It's not like this question came completely unexpected out of left field. Anyone who couldn't anticipate this being a line of questioning in the interview needs to be checked for a pulse and brain activity. Surely his handlers would have rehearsed potential questions and answers before walking into the interview, at the very least to keep him from tripping over his own biological imperative.

Why even go for the nature argument.

Hell, if one of us neanderthals could come up with a decent response to that question (kudos to OGBD  :salute: ) then surely the people in the CDS's office who's job it is to ensure crap like this doesn't reach the fan could have done just as good a job. Even without piling on political platitudes.
 
To me, the CDS's response just shows how out of tune we are when it comes to gender equality issues.

A large part of third wave feminism (which I despise*) is promoting the idea that men are above being biologically wired to be sexual predators. To reference our biology suggests that I, as a man, am just a monkey not capable of thinking past my natural biological desires for oxygen, water, food, and mating.

I think this whole report is a bit overblown on the sexual "assault" side of things, probably because it includes everything from putting your hand on the shoulder of someone else as a sexual assault if that person feels it was, or smacking someone on the *** during sports as sexual assault if that person feels it was, etc, when both acts could be in no way meant as such. Since we no longer use the word "rape," the width of things that falls under sexual assault is mind-boggling.

But, with regards to our language in particular, there is an awful lot that *is* an inappropriate reference to something sexual. For us to shy away from the fact that a lot of things that we say every day would *never* be allowed in a professional civilian workplace, or wouldn't land you in a heaping pile of crap in a civilian workplace if someone complained, means we are either deliberately sticking our head in the sand or it *is* deeply engrained in our culture. Neither one is a good reason to continue down the same path.


*Not because they are necessarily wrong, but because their solution to everything seems to be to have the government infringe on other people's freedom to force the world into behaving they want it to.

 
"It's not the way it should be"

Quite a few Canadians - and I am thinking maybe a couple of people here - went out of their way to overlook the above, which is the most important part.  It is the clue for the clueless: applied self-discipline and collective discipline are what separate us from our hind brains.  It is also the directive: discipline yourselves and your subordinates; pass no faults.

The special snowflakes who don't want to hear that all people have base instincts, and that some people have too little self-restraint, should be ignored.
 
ballz said:
To me, the CDS's response just shows how out of tune we are when it comes to gender equality issues.

A large part of third wave feminism (which I despise*) is promoting the idea that men are above being biologically wired to be sexual predators. To reference our biology suggests that I, as a man, am just a monkey not capable of thinking past my natural biological desires for oxygen, water, food, and mating.

I think this whole report is a bit overblown on the sexual "assault" side of things, probably because it includes everything from putting your hand on the shoulder of someone else as a sexual assault if that person feels it was, or smacking someone on the *** during sports as sexual assault if that person feels it was, etc, when both acts could be in no way meant as such. Since we no longer use the word "rape," the width of things that falls under sexual assault is mind-boggling.

But, with regards to our language in particular, there is an awful lot that *is* an inappropriate reference to something sexual. For us to shy away from the fact that a lot of things that we say every day would *never* be allowed in a professional civilian workplace, or wouldn't land you in a heaping pile of crap in a civilian workplace if someone complained, means we are either deliberately sticking our head in the sand or it *is* deeply engrained in our culture. Neither one is a good reason to continue down the same path.


*Not because they are necessarily wrong, but because their solution to everything seems to be to have the government infringe on other people's freedom to force the world into behaving they want it to.

I would disagree that anyone is above their makeup is to suggest that all the factors are strictly environment and not biological (though the term biological is used). Biological makeup explains a great deal of why people are the way that they are, and in many cases feminists, liberals, conservatives, and the whole gamut of people use biology as a reason to justify or explain all kinds of things (homosexuality, transexuality, beastiality, polyamorous, etc etc ad nauseum). In all of the cases listed, biology or makeup of the individual does explain why people do certain things (to various levels of social acceptance). We are not far removed from the days of homosexuality being a sexual disorder caused by environmental factors (choosing to be gay). Third wave feminists are dead wrong from that perspective.

From a biological standpoint I would agree with the CDS that people are wired the way that they are froma standpoint of sexual assault/rape in the physical sense. Certainly, persons who are going to commit rape or other sexual crimes are largely doing it because its what gives them the "thrill" vice an actual sexual need. In those cases, rapists are largely "wired that way" same as any other sexual behaviour (including heterosexuality).

From the standpoint of "sexual assault" in unwanted touching, coarse humour, crude language, etc than I disagree with the CDS adamantly. These are socialized behaviours learned from the environment and not from any physiological factors. So, changing the culture of the military in terms of the majority of the complaints in the Report comes from us as individuals and the institution. As has been stated many times, the military needs to change the culture. Leadership needs to be convinced that they must ALWAYS act, even if it tarnishes the unit. People must learn that these things are inappropriate. Both must be backed with REAL consequences (unlike drug use, which though the policy states "no tolerances" still requires multiple positives tests to kick someone out). Its 2015- we still shouldn't have stories of instructors calling candidates "gay" or people asking, "Can I still tell my troops that they run like girls as long as there aren't any women in my troop" at the MGENs HARASSMENT BRIEF (which happened in Shilo).
 
It's all fine, well and good to say that men are wired biologically to act that way.

But it overlooks the fact that we as a species are also wired to have impulse control, and the capacity to learn right from wrong.

The biological argument is a broad brush slapping paint an entire gender, when the problem itself is the result of an extreme minority that have diminished impulse control, and diminished capacity to learn right from wrong.

As it is, it comes at best as an excuse, and at the worst a justification for such actions.

Adding the caveat "It's not the way it should be" doesn't help improve the argument.
 
With respect to the the campus rape culture meme, there is more evidence to this being more myth than reality.

Why do high-profile campus rape stories keep falling apart?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/06/02/why-do-high-profile-campus-rape-stories-keep-falling-apart/

At Slate, Emily Yoffe digs into the one of the poster cases for the anti-campus rape advocacy film “The Hunting Ground” and finds some devastating flaws in how the movie portrays what happened.

[Kamilah] Willingham’s story is not an illustration of a sexual predator allowed to run loose by self-interested administrators. The record shows that what happened that night was precisely the kind of spontaneous, drunken encounter that administrators who deal with campus sexual assault accusations say is typical. (The filmmakers, who favor David Lisak’s poorly substantiated position that our college campuses are rife with serial rapists, reject the suggestion that such encounters are the source of many sexual assault allegations.) Nor is Willingham’s story an example of official indifference. Harvard did not ignore her complaints; the school thoroughly investigated them. And because of her allegations, the law school education of her alleged assailant has been halted for the past four years.

I’ll let you read Yoffe’s article to understand why the allegations against the man don’t hold up.

But this all raises an important question. I think the activists on this issue are mistaken when they say that we’re in the midst of a campus rape crisis. The data just don’t support the notion. And the studies that do have some serious flaws. The results produced by this debate are also troubling: Colleges and universities are essentially pulling an end-around the criminal justice system, adjudicating sexual assault cases on their own, on terms more favorable to the accusing party. The punishment isn’t as severe, but it can still be pretty devastating for the wrongly accused. And the guilty aren’t put away to protect society, but merely banished from campus to protect the students who pay tuition.

That said, there’s obviously no doubt that campus rape happens. The nature of the crime makes it extraordinarily difficult to assess its frequency. From the studies I’ve seen, it seems safe to say that it isn’t nearly as frequent as the one-in-five figure often raised by activists, but it happens often enough that there are likely thousands of assaults on campus every year. It’s also easy to sympathize with frustrations over how difficult rape can be to prove, especially those assaults that don’t produce any physical injury. And because rape can be so hard to prove, there’s no doubt that there are thousands of cases in which a rape actually occurred and for which the perpetrator was never disciplined, criminally, administratively or any other way.

So here’s my question: Given that there are so many legitimate incidents to choose from, why have so many high-profile cases ultimately fallen apart?

If you were to ask an average person today to name a prominent story about rape on college campuses, odds are pretty good that among the top four or five replies would be the Duke lacrosse case, the Rolling Stone cover story about Jackie and the University of Virginia, Columbia University “mattress girl” Emma Sulkowicz and one of the stories from “The Hunting Ground.” Yet in all of these stories, either the accusations were later shown to be a complete fabrication or at least serious questions were raised about them.

Each time a new high-profile story falls apart, a larger portion of the public becomes less likely to believe the next one. (It would be nice to think that we’d evaluate these stories on their own merits. But that isn’t how we tend to process contentious issues.) The anti-campus rape activists often claim that false accusations of sexual assault are practically nonexistent. (“Anti-campus rape activists” is a necessary but admittedly clumsy term. Every sane person is obviously opposed to campus rape. And even among activists who have made campus rape their issue, there is dissent and disagreement about strategy, priorities and reform.) But that so many of the accusations that they themselves have chosen as emblems of the cause have been proved false or debatable suggests that they’re either wrong about the frequency of false accusations or that the movement itself has had some extraordinarily bad luck.

Calculating the frequency of false rape accusations is even more difficult than studying the frequency of rape. Consequently, the researchers and activists who have tried have put this figure all over the map, from a fraction of a percent to as high as 40 percent. My own hunch is that they’re much more common than “almost never,” which activists claim, but nowhere nearly as common as their apparent occurrence in these high-profile cases. So why do anti-campus rape activists keep shooting themselves in the foot? Something else must be at play.

One possibility is that the nascent anti-campus rape movement isn’t as seasoned as the activist groups to whom we’ve become accustomed. We’re used to groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (or if you’re familiar with it, the Institute for Justice, a libertarian law firm) who are incredibly meticulous about vetting their poster cases. This is an unfortunate reality of successful activism: You must be very careful when choosing your victims. But there’s a big difference between always picking good cases and this uncanny record of picking bad ones. So this explanation isn’t quite satisfying.

A second explanation could just be that the cases that fell apart are the ones we remember — or, we remember them because they fell apart. There may be some truth to this. Exoneration stories certainly capture the public’s attention. But the Duke lacrosse case and the Rolling Stone story were huge national news well before skeptics began poking holes in the accusers’ stories. In fact, the earliest skeptics in these cases faced quite a bit of scorn and derision. In the case of Sulkowicz, the consensus is still probably in her favor, although the story looks much different now than when it was first reported. In the “Hunting Ground” story, Yoffe just posted her investigation today, so this explanation clearly doesn’t apply.

A third possibility was suggested by the Columbia School of Journalism’s report on the Rolling Stone story.

Last July 8, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a writer for Rolling Stone, telephoned Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual assault issues as a staff member at the University of Virginia. Erdely said she was searching for a single, emblematic college rape case that would show “what it’s like to be on campus now … where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there’s this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture,” according to Erdely’s notes of the conversation.

In other words, there’s a strong desire to find the “emblematic” case, one that checks off all the right boxes — a sympathetic victim, a privileged attacker, an indifferent administration, and so on. Real life doesn’t usually produce such clean-cut cases. So there may be an urge to bend stories to make them more sympathetic, more universal and more likely to generate outrage. Probably more to the point, this desire to seek out the perfect poster case may also make activists and their sympathizers in the press more credulous and less willing to ask questions when a story that appears to fit the bill does come along, as Jackie’s story did. For activists and sympathetic journalists alike, there’s a strong incentive to want to see a promising story (i.e. “promising” in terms of its potential to generate change) in the most favorable light, and with that, a proclivity to overlook the red flags.

Another possibility merges these two points: The alleged victims most eager to generate publicity for their stories may be the those most likely to say what activists or journalists in search of a good story want to hear. This means the stories most likely to be heard are those most in need of skepticism — and those least likely to get it. That’s a conflation of incentives that’s almost guaranteed to produce bad results.

This is obviously a very sensitive topic — but this point in particular is a delicate one, so let me be clear. This isn’t an argument that college students (and anti-rape activists in particular) never get raped. Nor is it an argument that accusations should never be believed. Nor is it an argument that rape victims should be ashamed to come forward. It’s only to say that generally speaking, an alleged victim eager to generate publicity about what happened to her may require more verification than an alleged victim who is reluctant to come forward. All else being equal, reluctant witnesses are more persuasive than eager ones. (Of course, all else is rarely equal.)

Finally, it may be that activists deliberately seek out and champion the ambiguous cases to demonstrate their commitment to the cause. This is pretty common among ideologues. (I see it often among my fellow libertarians.) You show your bona fides by taking a hard line even on those issues, incidents and scenarios that scream out for subtlety. You see this in some of the reform proposals put forth by anti-campus rape activists, such as laws requiring explicit consent before each progression of sexual activity or in staking out absurd positions such as “drunk sex is always rape.” This one seems to have been a contributing factor in the Columbia and “Hunting Ground” stories, which became accepted demonstrations of acquaintance rape despite their ambiguity. (Only recently, a Salon headline referred to Sulkowicz as a “rape survivor,” despite the fact that her alleged assailant had been cleared by a school inquiry, was never criminally charged and denies the accusation.) But it couldn’t have been a factor in the Rolling Stone and Duke lacrosse stories — there was nothing ambiguous about what was alleged in those cases.

As I wrote above, I have some real disagreements with the means with which the anti-campus rape movement wants to achieve its goals. I don’t think colleges are equipped to handle what are at heart criminal trials — nor should we ask them to take on that responsibility. But I certainly share the movement’s goals, as does any decent human being — we all want to minimize the incidence of rape, and we all want rapists to be brought to justice. The good news is that despite what you may have been led to believe, on the first objective, we’re seeing incredible progress.

But the “believe every accuser” approach to this issue is proving to be destructive to both goals. It’s obviously destructive to the men who have been wrongly accused and whose reputations and lives have been ruined. But it’s also destructive to actual victims of sexual assault. Every high-profile story that crumbles under scrutiny reinforces the perception that false accusations are common. And that only makes it more difficult to hold the real assailants accountable.
 
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