Article here. Excerpt:

'What does that mean? If a woman was unconscious or severely incapacitated, everyone would call it rape. But what about sex while inebriated? Few people would say that intoxicated sex alone constitutes rape — indeed, a nontrivial percentage of all customary sexual intercourse, including marital intercourse, probably falls under that definition (and is therefore criminal according to the CDC).

Other survey questions were equally ambiguous. Participants were asked if they had ever had sex because someone pressured them by “telling you lies, making promises about the future they knew were untrue?” All affirmative answers were counted as “sexual violence.” Anyone who consented to sex because a suitor wore her or him down by “repeatedly asking” or “showing they were unhappy” was similarly classified as a victim of violence. The CDC effectively set a stage where each step of physical intimacy required a notarized testament of sober consent.

Article here. Excerpt:

'A Philadelphia woman who told police that two black men kidnapped her -- and was later found to have lied -- was sentenced to eight years in prison Thursday, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Bonnie Sweeten, 40, who made headlines two years ago after triggering a massive search when she called police and said that black men had kidnapped her and her 9-year-old daughter, will have to pay $1 million in restitution.

"Sweeten stole funds from family members, from the law office where she had been employed and from the law firm's clients," the prosecutor's office said after the ruling came down.

"You've done great wrong, and you have to pay the price," said U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., calling her a "master con woman."'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Back in September, I wrote in the magazine about the problems posed for colleges and universities by the Department of Education’s new rules governing how they must respond to allegations of sexual assault. Over the weekend, those chickens came home to roost, big-time, as the news spread that Yale University quarterback Patrick Witt had been accused of sexual assault.

You may remember Witt; he was lauded nationally for choosing to forgo an interview for a Rhodes Scholarship in order to play in his final college football game (against Harvard), which was scheduled for the same day. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Witt withdrew his candidacy for the scholarship after the Rhodes Trust “learned through unofficial channels that a fellow student had accused Witt of sexual assault.” The Times story, written by Richard Pérez-Peña, is rather extraordinary. For example, it includes these lines:

Link here. Excerpt:

The Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was postponed until this coming week to allow more time for staff to negotiate several sticking points. And well they should, because victims are demanding to know, "Where's all the money going?"
 
Time and time again, domestic violence victims are being turned away by the very agencies that are supposed to be helping them, or are getting the DV runaround. One Department of Justice audit reached this disturbing conclusion:
 
$638,298, or about 47 percent, of $1.3 million given to Jane Doe, Inc., also known as the Massachusetts Coalition Against Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, was identified as unsupported and unallowable payroll expenditures, unallowable bonus payments, and unallowable and unreasonable conference expenditures.
 
So the problem isn't a lack of funding. The problem is lack of accountability.

Originally posted here.

'If you live in Colorado or know someone who does, please read this important message from NOCIRC of Colorado.

TO ALL COLORADO RESIDENTS:

We need your help THIS WEEK!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As you may know, last year Colorado became the 18th state to remove payment for newborn circumcision from Medicaid. This was a huge victory not only for baby boys, but also for the taxpayers.

But now, some members of the Colorado legislature are trying to reinstate Medicaid coverage of circumcision. Colorado Senate Bill 12-090 would waste taxpayer dollars on medically unnecessary newborn circumcision.
Link to the bill:
http://www.leg.state.co.us/clics/clics2012a/csl.nsf/fsbillcont3/D9846C2F0630E6D087257981007DC869?open&file=090_01.pdf

Article here. Excerpt:

'"Help! I hate my husband."

This is how a letter starts in my Inbox today. It's from a 41-year-old woman named Cindy in Dallas who has been married for 12 years. I get hate mail like this using slightly different language several times a week. Substitute the word "hate" for "loathe", "despise", "can't stand" and occasionally, "wanna kill".
...
Any woman married for longer than six months, if she is honest, knows the eggshell thin line that separates loving from loathing The deeper the love, the deeper the potential to hate. Any wife who is honest knows the compulsion to throw things, to hiss, to swear, to sit in the driveway in your bathrobe, engine running, sobbing.
...

From Cindy:

"At some point every week I feel like leaving him. When we got married I imagined this great life we would have together and instead we seem to always be fighting, about the kids, about the fact that he is so remote, about the stupidest things."

From me:

"Are you still attracted to him?"

Article here. Excerpt:

'This February, football fans across the country will be gearing up to see who will be the champions of Super Bowl XLVI. Will the Giants squash the Patriots? Or will freedom ring and the Giants suffer a swift defeat? Whatever the outcome, the Crisis Control Center, Inc. in Durant encourages football fanatics to celebrate for a purpose in 2012. The center will once again “Tackle Domestic Violence” this year during the week of the Super Bowl. While you’re noshing on junk food, talking about your favorite Super Bowl commercials, waiting to see what crazy antics will ensue during the halftime show and cheering on your favorite team, you and your friends can be doing your part to end domestic violence.

Article here. Here:

'The Community Oriented Policing group in Puslinch decided to bring family domestic violence to the forefront and has spent this past year carrying out various activities to highlight the support available and to bring awareness to this issue. This group culminated its year-long effort by holding an information night and silent auction. All auction proceeds went to Women in Crisis and Victim Services of Guelph-Wellington. An audience of more than 40 — about half of which were men — attended. Our guest speaker, representing Women in Crisis, began her talk by equating domestic violence with abuse to women. She said violence toward a male is very rare and it has to be recognized that when violence occurs within families, the victim is almost always a woman. As the speaker went on, I could see some in the audience getting a little antsy — myself included. It was beginning to sound like men were the root of all evil. Some audience members challenged her assumptions, but the speaker asserted her position.

Story here. Excerpt:

Article here. Excerpt:

'Children’s right activists from coast to coast have joined together this month to press more than 2,200 lawmakers in Congress and eleven states to enact the Male Genital Mutilation Bill. The proposed bill would protect boys from forced circumcision the same way that girls are protected under federal and state laws.

As director of MGMbill.org’s Florida office, Stacey Butler is leading the effort in her state to make Section 794.08 of Florida’s Sexual Battery Code gender neutral. “All children deserve to be protected from forced genital cutting,” said Butler, a licensed practical nurse and mother of three living in Palm Bay. “Although every girl in America has a legal right to genital integrity, we still allow boys to be circumcised for medically unnecessary reasons. That needs to change. One person at a time, one child at a time, we will make a difference!”'

Article here. Excerpt:

'Being a man accused of a sex crime these days is tantamount to being convicted in the court of public opinion. Even if you are cleared, Google your name until the day you die and the stink of “sexual abuse” or “rape” will be in the first graph of your bio.

Ask any of those young guys falsely accused in the Duke University lacrosse team “rape” scandal. Ask any of the kids who did time for brutalizing the Central Park jogger only for DNA to vindicate them.

This by no means is to suggest that Kelly's accuser is a liar.

Any woman who accuses a man of rape or sexual assault should be taken seriously. I have no evidence to contradict her claims that Kelly date-raped her while she was intoxicated in her law office after they had drinks in October.

But I haven’t seen anything to back up her story yet either.

Article here. Excerpt:

'“She lied to the boyfriend to meet Greg that night. She said, ‘I’m going out with a girlfriend,’ ” said the source.

They had a couple of drinks but the bar tab revealed that the amount of drink taken was “laughably low” — and then went to the woman’s law firm.

They had sexual relations in her boss’s office.

Afterrwards “They continued to text,” the source said. “Part of it was about arranging another date.”

There were 17 text messages in all between the two.

“You don’t text your rapist — other than to say, ‘You’re awful,’” the source said.

But three months later the woman claimed Kelly had raped her and reported it to police. She claimed she was too drunk to resist his advances.
...
The key to the case, says the insider is “What drives someone who’s making a delayed report?”'

Link here. Excerpt:

'Research Fellow (Biostatistician/Epidemiologist)
Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men’s Health, School of Medicine

Job Reference Number: 17097

We are seeking an enthusiastic and committed Research Fellow Biostatistician/Epidemiologist to conduct analyses of data generated by researchers, and provide support to students, in the Freemasons Foundation Centre for Men’s Health, School of Medicine at the University of Adelaide.

Position Requirements

At a minimum, the candidate should have the following qualifications:

Article here. This article claims that domestic violence incidents go up when the Denver Broncos lose a football game. It sounds suspiciously like the Super Bowl Hoax--that DV incidents increase on Super Bowl day. It also states the usual half-truths and unfounded statistics about DV. You can post comments under the article or send a Letter to the Editor (via e-mail) to openforum-at-denverpost.com. Excerpt:

'I was never a big sports fan, and I became less of one about 15 years ago.

I was at a tea party hosted by my aunt and shared a conversation with Anne Tapp, executive director of Safe House Alliance, a domestic violence shelter in Boulder. She made a statement that comes to mind literally every time I think of professional sports.

"Our busiest days are when the Broncos lose," she said. Apparently a lot of people take the game pretty seriously."'