Editorial: Changing the culture of rape

“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver.”

– Deuteronomy 22:28

Given how lightly rape has sometimes been taken throughout history, it’s encouraging to see AB2888 sweep through the state Assembly this week in a unanimous 66-0 vote. The bill, cosponsored by 4th District Assemblyman Bill Dodd (D-Napa), prohibits a court from granting probation to those who sexually assault victims while they are “unconscious or incapable of giving consent due to intoxication.”

The bill was written by Santa Clara District Attorney Jeff Rosen in reaction to the now-infamous Brock Turner case, in which the Stanford student attempted to rape an inebriated 23-year-old woman behind a Dumpster in the waning hours of a late-night frat party.

Turner, 21, was found guilty of attempted rape and unlawful penetration, but outrage ensued when Santa Clara Superior Court Judge Aaron Persky ignored the prosecution’s request for a six-year prison sentence and, instead, merely gave Turner three years of probation and six months incarceration. With “credit” for good behavior given at the time of sentencing, Turner will be released today, Sept. 2, after serving three months.

In a statement about the bill, Dodd described Turner’s assault of his intoxicated victim a “terrible crime” and said the law needs to reflect that.

“Letting felons convicted of such crimes get off with probation discourages other survivors from coming forward and sends the message that raping incapacitated victims is no big deal,” said Dodd, who represents the unincorporated Sonoma Valley in the Assembly. “This bill is about more than sentencing, it’s about supporting victims and changing the culture on our college campuses.”

We hope Dodd’s bill does just that. However, the culture of which Dodd refers extends far beyond the bile-soaked carpets of college frat houses. This is about society’s view of female sexuality as a male-entrapping siren song, where men are partial victims of their own sexual assaults when the cocktail sifter of libido and liquor is mixed a tad too strong.

Bluntly, some men today still don’t see unwanted sexual advances as that big a deal, as is evident in Persky’s readily forgiving punishment – in which he cited the case’s “media attention” as a “poison” upon poor Brock Turner – or when Turner’s father creepily dismissed the proceedings as “a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action.”

This type of attitude about rape can’t be chalked up to a father refusing to believe the worst about his son. It’s too ingrained in that “Mad Men”-era attitude that some men can’t help themselves and women need to learn to deal with it. Even a nominee for President of the United States openly takes a love ’em or leave ’em approach to sexual harassment. When asked this summer about a hypothetical situation in which his own daughter faced unwanted sexual advances at a job, Donald Trump suggested she should “find another career.”

Clearly outmoded attitudes die hard – but are things at least getting better? Not so sure.

As it happens, this year marks the 20th anniversary of an infamous prom night case from 1996, when a trio of Novato High School seniors took turns having sex with a 15-year-old at an Embassy Suites hotel, “as she drifted in and out of drunken consciousness,” as the San Francisco Examiner described it at the time. The three young men – now middle aged men, still local to the North Bay – got off with an “unlawful sex with a minor” plea deal and were given three month sentences, with the possibility of home confinement. Only a slightly better deal than Turner received.

The storyline at the time was how many “victims” there were in the case and how to avoid such “mistakes” in the future. The lawyer for one of the young men said there was plenty of blame to go around.

“This was prom night. They were all too intoxicated, and everybody made a mistake,” attorney Arthur Wachtel told the Examiner.

That was two decades ago, and the same excuses have been used to defend, and excuse, Brock Turner. But the good news is that those excuses and wrist-slapping punishments aren’t sliding by without a response anymore. The backlash over Turner’s light sentence was such that Judge Persky was essentially shamed into taking himself off criminal cases – and he still faces a momentum-gaining recall effort.

And AB2888 will likely be signed by Gov. Brown, making wrists somewhat harder to slap in cases of rape.

Will it change the societal view that intoxicated rape isn’t really rape?

I wouldn’t put 50 shekels of silver on it.

Email Jason at jason.walsh@sonomanews.com.