The Netherlands Volleyball Federation says Steven van de Velde has shown "self-insight and reflection" since his 2016 conviction for raping a 12-year-old.
It’s not equivilent to violent assault, or drugging or blackmail or something like that, but the word in the headline implies that it is. This is a criticism of “get clicks” journalism, not of protecting children or using appropriate language to describe things that are not OK.
Young people are stupid and deserve understanding and forgiveness. If there HAD been violence or blackmail or something I would not feel the same way about this.
This does not make me some MRA bro being like “it’s fine man.” That’s not what I’m saying. What I am is someone who has worked with and mentored a lot of young people and the culture is NOT kind to them around issues of sexuality. It’s trying to get kinder, but we’re still WAY too confused and reactionary and don’t think about these situations on a case by case basis, we think about them like “Gross man!” And that creates tons of injustice. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to be comfortable with it (you shouldn’t be comfortable with stuff like this), but that doesn’t mean your reactions can’t feed into a problematic zeitgeist. And the news is always going to be like “rape, rape, rape (click here to learn more)!” That’s not always fair, because that word can mean lots of different things (all bad, but not all equal) and our imaginations rush straight to the worst version.
That’s all I’m saying. I knew I would get comments like this when I did. To me that proves my point a little.
What outrages me is 19 year olds going to jail for having sex with 17 year old, or 15 year olds getting put on sex offender lists for filming themselves and sharing it on line. These things are an awful problem, that it’s hard for us to talk about and address. The Right ALWAYS wants to punish sex outside their excepted social boundaries (or any opportunity they get really) and the left is like “Protect and liberate children! (for good reason) but DON’T think too hard about the edge cases because OMG protect the children!!!”
You’re right, this isn’t an edge case. He violated a big boundary, took advantage of what was probably a huge power imbalance, he was definitely old enough that he should know better and he faced his consequences. And they WEREN’T that extreme because the cases aren’t all equal.
All I’m saying is maybe he doesn’t deserve to live the rest of his life as a social pariah because of a case of bad judgement at 21. You won’t change my mind about that. If that makes me gross to you… ok.
I’m not arguing it wasn’t rape. I’m arguing
It’s not equivilent to violent assault, or drugging or blackmail or something like that, but the word in the headline implies that it is. This is a criticism of “get clicks” journalism, not of protecting children or using appropriate language to describe things that are not OK.
Young people are stupid and deserve understanding and forgiveness. If there HAD been violence or blackmail or something I would not feel the same way about this.
This does not make me some MRA bro being like “it’s fine man.” That’s not what I’m saying. What I am is someone who has worked with and mentored a lot of young people and the culture is NOT kind to them around issues of sexuality. It’s trying to get kinder, but we’re still WAY too confused and reactionary and don’t think about these situations on a case by case basis, we think about them like “Gross man!” And that creates tons of injustice. You don’t have to like it, you don’t have to be comfortable with it (you shouldn’t be comfortable with stuff like this), but that doesn’t mean your reactions can’t feed into a problematic zeitgeist. And the news is always going to be like “rape, rape, rape (click here to learn more)!” That’s not always fair, because that word can mean lots of different things (all bad, but not all equal) and our imaginations rush straight to the worst version.
That’s all I’m saying. I knew I would get comments like this when I did. To me that proves my point a little.
What outrages me is 19 year olds going to jail for having sex with 17 year old, or 15 year olds getting put on sex offender lists for filming themselves and sharing it on line. These things are an awful problem, that it’s hard for us to talk about and address. The Right ALWAYS wants to punish sex outside their excepted social boundaries (or any opportunity they get really) and the left is like “Protect and liberate children! (for good reason) but DON’T think too hard about the edge cases because OMG protect the children!!!”
You’re right, this isn’t an edge case. He violated a big boundary, took advantage of what was probably a huge power imbalance, he was definitely old enough that he should know better and he faced his consequences. And they WEREN’T that extreme because the cases aren’t all equal.
All I’m saying is maybe he doesn’t deserve to live the rest of his life as a social pariah because of a case of bad judgement at 21. You won’t change my mind about that. If that makes me gross to you… ok.