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Why is sex crime so special?

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trollcatman
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26 Aug 2014, 11:24 pm

MrGrumpy wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
If celebrities are netted more often than high powered business or political leaders, it's only because celebrities have more light on them. It's no different than celebrities being exposed for substance abuse problems, or making insane political or racial statements by both the tabloid press and the mainstream media. Business people and politicians have more in common with ordinary people in that our private lives are largely private.
And who ever said sexual intercourse was disgusting? :?

I really don't understand your point - should celebrities be subjected to a different set of rules from the rest of us? Why are the police not trawling for historic crimes of substance abuse and racial discrimination?

Maybe I should replace the the word 'disgusting' with the word 'inconvenient'


What's the benefit of going after past substance abusers? Substance abuse is a victimless crime.



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26 Aug 2014, 11:30 pm

MrGrumpy wrote:
Since no-one else has seen fit to offer an answer to my original question, I thought I would offer some thoughts of my own...

Sex Crimes are Special because -

1. They generate heated debate, because there is no clear distinction between a sexual advance and a sexual assault
2. Putative victims are guaranteed anonymity whilst putative offenders are exposed to the glare of the media from the start
3. Convicted sex offenders are listed on a special register which does not include other crimes against 'the person'
4. The police seem to be engaged in an active trawl for historic sex offenders, to the exclusion of other historic crimes
5. The police trawl seems to fail to net members of the establishment whilst pulling in many show business celebrities

I am totally gutted by the suffering of women, but evolution is a gradual process. Eventually, no doubt, the reproduction of the species will no longer depend upon something as disgusting as sexual intercourse. I'm glad that I will be long gone before that day arrives...

It's just a matter of time.
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscienc ... duce-with/


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Kraichgauer
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27 Aug 2014, 12:30 am

trollcatman wrote:
MrGrumpy wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
If celebrities are netted more often than high powered business or political leaders, it's only because celebrities have more light on them. It's no different than celebrities being exposed for substance abuse problems, or making insane political or racial statements by both the tabloid press and the mainstream media. Business people and politicians have more in common with ordinary people in that our private lives are largely private.
And who ever said sexual intercourse was disgusting? :?

I really don't understand your point - should celebrities be subjected to a different set of rules from the rest of us? Why are the police not trawling for historic crimes of substance abuse and racial discrimination?

Maybe I should replace the the word 'disgusting' with the word 'inconvenient'


What's the benefit of going after past substance abusers? Substance abuse is a victimless crime.


I was using that as an example of how celebrities, being 24/7 in the public eye, are constantly under media scrutiny.


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trollcatman
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27 Aug 2014, 1:24 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
MrGrumpy wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
If celebrities are netted more often than high powered business or political leaders, it's only because celebrities have more light on them. It's no different than celebrities being exposed for substance abuse problems, or making insane political or racial statements by both the tabloid press and the mainstream media. Business people and politicians have more in common with ordinary people in that our private lives are largely private.
And who ever said sexual intercourse was disgusting? :?

I really don't understand your point - should celebrities be subjected to a different set of rules from the rest of us? Why are the police not trawling for historic crimes of substance abuse and racial discrimination?

Maybe I should replace the the word 'disgusting' with the word 'inconvenient'


What's the benefit of going after past substance abusers? Substance abuse is a victimless crime.


I was using that as an example of how celebrities, being 24/7 in the public eye, are constantly under media scrutiny.


Yeah, but from MrGrumpy's reply I got the impression he expects police resources to be used for going after civilians doing substance abuse in the past.
I think there substance abuse isn't such a big deal here. Either we don't have a mayor like Toronto, or they are better at hiding it. It's pretty much an open secret that the European finance ministers usually drank wine during their work meetings, and quite a bit too. And they smoked in their office, against the rules. It was known to journalists but not reported, until one of the finance ministers talked about it himself.
It's fairly likely that some politicians use drugs. Traces of cocaine were found in the toilets of the Dutch PMs. There was also a Belgian PM who was often drunk, even when speaking in parliament. I've seen him several times giving a slurred speech, with a wide drunken grin on his face. It did nothing to hurt his popularity, in fact the opposite happened. When asked by a reporter whether he had drunk anything he said: "No more than usual."



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27 Aug 2014, 1:47 am

^^^
No more than usual :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: ! !! !!
Unfortunately, when American politicians get drunk, they say stupid, hurtful things like Rick Perry. And despite what he might claim, that guy's been three sheets to the wind constantly.


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27 Aug 2014, 1:51 am

Quote:
1. They generate heated debate, because there is no clear distinction between a sexual advance and a sexual assault


Situations where this is contended aren't common at all. I mean unless you grope women ad lib. In a court of law all the "subtle distinctions" I drew earlier except the kiss would probably be dismissed unless it could be proved that the defendant ignored clear signs and persisted despite warning. This is only an issue because we have ASD and there's a massive dimension missing in our social interaction. We need to be told in black and white terms and sadly the social world doesn't work like that.


Quote:
2. Putative victims are guaranteed anonymity whilst putative offenders are exposed to the glare of the media from the start


False allegations can be made and this can destroy lives but it's irrelevant and if the putative offender is guilty its a non issue.

Quote:
3. Convicted sex offenders are listed on a special register which does not include other crimes against 'the person'


Not even sure what you mean by this. Do you mean that the register doesn't record physical assault drugging etc?

Quote:
4. The police seem to be engaged in an active trawl for historic sex offenders, to the exclusion of other historic crimes

Um no actually. The media exposure has given victims the courage to come forward and the police are doing their job. Its just media focus.

Quote:
5. The police trawl seems to fail to net members of the establishment whilst pulling in many show business celebrities


I agree that this is appalling but the celebrities appear to be disposable. Its all diverting attention away from the truth.



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27 Aug 2014, 3:00 am

Kraichgauer wrote:
^^^
No more than usual :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: ! !! !!
Unfortunately, when American politicians get drunk, they say stupid, hurtful things like Rick Perry. And despite what he might claim, that guy's been three sheets to the wind constantly.


The people who say nasty things when they are drunk were probably having those nasty thoughts anyway, they just come out when drunk. I'd sooner vote for a capable and well-meaning drunk than for some hateful politician.
The Belgians seem to have quite a few funny politicians. Ours are mostly quite boring, not many jokes, not many scandals.
Bart de Wever is an incredibly funny Flemish politician, and leader of the largest party in Flanders, and is mayor of Antwerp too. Earlier this year he appeared in a panda suit at the Flemish television awards (the audience appears not to expect him) to protest against importing a few pandas for a breeding program because he found it too expensive. He also fell off the stage. This clip only shows him coming on the stage, falling, stumbling back and taking his mask off, and a short comment by him:

http://nieuws.vtm.be/tv-media/83780-panda-de-wever-valt-van-podium



Last edited by trollcatman on 27 Aug 2014, 3:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

Ectryon
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27 Aug 2014, 3:26 am

trollcatman wrote:
Kraichgauer wrote:
^^^
No more than usual :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: ! !! !!
Unfortunately, when American politicians get drunk, they say stupid, hurtful things like Rick Perry. And despite what he might claim, that guy's been three sheets to the wind constantly.


The people who say nasty things when they are drunk were probably having those nasty thoughts anyway, they just come out when drunk. I'd sooner vote for a capable and well-meaning drunk than for some hateful politician.


Imo they're just as bad as each other. Im not judging drunks just that capable drunks deteriorate into incapable drunks at which point you'll end up with a leader who is either a total puppet or who is forced to step down. Then you have no choice who leads next. I presume its passed onto the next in charge.



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27 Aug 2014, 3:36 am

There are quite a few heavy drinkers who seem to be pretty succesful. Christopher Hitchens drank and smoked a lot and he was great. Maybe because heavy drinkers build up a tolerance after a while.
Churchill and Stalin were pretty heavy drinkers as well. Of course drinking during work was pretty common in those days. In some places in Europe it still is.



Ectryon
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27 Aug 2014, 3:44 am

trollcatman wrote:
There are quite a few heavy drinkers who seem to be pretty succesful. Christopher Hitchens drank and smoked a lot and he was great. Maybe because heavy drinkers build up a tolerance after a while.
Churchill and Stalin were pretty heavy drinkers as well. Of course drinking during work was pretty common in those days. In some places in Europe it still is.



I suppose they do build a tolerance but Earnest Hemmingway and Sibelius are two people who didn't fare well.
ps Christopher Hitchens suggested that we crush Iraq before they crush us and that the theft of Native American land was justified because the Indians did it to each other anyway. He advocated bombing Iraq and Iran into submission too effectively genocide. He's a great debater but he has a very unpleasant alter ego.

Quote:
To Hitchens, anyone who refused to join him in celebrating "with great vim and gusto" the annihilation of the native peoples of the Americas was (in his words) self-hating, ridiculous, ignorant, and sinister. People who regard critically the genocide that was carried out in America's past, Hitchens continued, are simply reactionary, since such grossly inhuman atrocities "happen to be the way history is made". And thus "to complain about[them] is as empty as complaint about climatic, geological, or tectonic shift". Moreover, he added, such violence is worth glorifying since it more often than not has been for the long-term betterment of humankind - as in the United States today, where the extermination of the Native Americans - the American Indians - has brought about "a nearly boundless epoch of opportunity and innovation".



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27 Aug 2014, 3:54 am

Ectryon wrote:
trollcatman wrote:
There are quite a few heavy drinkers who seem to be pretty succesful. Christopher Hitchens drank and smoked a lot and he was great. Maybe because heavy drinkers build up a tolerance after a while.
Churchill and Stalin were pretty heavy drinkers as well. Of course drinking during work was pretty common in those days. In some places in Europe it still is.



I suppose they do build a tolerance but Earnest Hemmingway and Sibelius are two people who didn't fare well.
ps Christopher Hitchens suggested that we crush Iraq before they crush us and that the theft of Native American land was justified because the Indians did it to each other anyway. He advocated bombing Iraq and Iran into submission too effectively genocide. He's a great debater but he has a very unpleasant alter ego.


Hitchens' argument was more of the kind that brutal dictatorships cannot be trusted with weapons of mass destruction, doesn't seem so strange to me. He spoke against dictatorships a lot. I wouldn't call it an alter ego, he just changed his position somewhere around the time of 9/11.



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27 Aug 2014, 3:56 am

^^^ I don't know where he said that. Where did you get that bit?