Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Or, one could read that as the Democrats offering Kavanaugh to call for an investigation, rather than they calling for one, which would be better for him. And all he had to do was say, "Yes, I would certainly welcome an investigation, to help clear my name." The fact that he repeatedly danced around it speaks volumes.
Yeah right.
That may play with low information voters but most of us see it for what it was.
Unfair.
And to be clear he said multiple times he would cooperate with whatever the committee wanted.
Finally, we all know that a further FBI investigation is not going to "clear his name"
They may add new facts but its doubtful they will prove anything one way or the other.
You've experienced a difficult time and should be applauded for your strength. It's profoundly human to process what we hear of others through our frame of reference based on our experiences. Certainly this is true for me when hearing Ford's story. I grew up in that era; attended many such parties.
I have never been raped nor sexually assaulted (actual physical contact). However, I was seriously threatened with harm if I resisted an attempt the first time I walked into a large party (state university, fraternity house). I did not then understand "the ground rules." This was the closest I have ever come even though in later years I traveled extensively on my own in areas of the world considered quite dangerous for women.
In college, I literally escaped through a combination of luck and a gymnastic feat that never have I duplicated. Not being drunk helped. Sexual abuse was rife in those settings but even then most young men (drunk or not) would not have behaved as Ford reported Kavanaugh did. Embarrassed by my naivete I don't remember discussing it much with friends then or later ... my frame of recall is much like Ford's although unlike her I can remember how I got to the party and how I left. Date? Time of year? Precise location? All gone. The individual's name and the actual threat I recall precisely.
Later I lived in Ford's home neighborhoods where I made the decision to withdraw my daughter from independent private schools because (well this and the expense!) of the attitude of privilege that can foster self-entitled behavior. The pressure that some of these children were and are placed under by parents to match the parental levels of high education and professional success certainly seems to play a role in various forms of acting-out. Give me a solid middle to working-class school with the non-elite and hard-working immigrants any day, at least for my kid!
Consequently, I do not find any disconnect between what Kavanaugh is accused of and his later professional success although I can appreciate the confusion of other posters.
All that said ... your post is important for one other reason. The bold. Ford has been clear that the "drunken grope" is NOT the source of her trauma. It was the fear that she would be accidentally smothered. She has described how this has played out with discomfort in enclosed spaces (flying), home design. In all these many pages, I don't believe there has been one discussion of post-traumatic stress syndrome and how it alters brain function. (And, sure, Ford is a psychologist with the professional knowledge to fabricate PSTD.)
Here, too, I can identify with the lifelong impact of a traumatic event based on the experiences of a close family member.
But, again, it is human to process or even hear by first placing information into our personal context of reference based on our prior experiences. That process can lead to greater empathy or conversely can led to a profound lack of understanding.
Ford's story is one of trauma, not mere sexual groping - although the many women who respond so hysterically to her testimony (like the ones screaming at Flake) no doubt are relieving trauma based on various forms of rape etc.
Her sex life is not relevant at all. If it was a case of consent versus non-consent, then yes, but this is not the case.
Or is it? If someone slept with 40 men in such a short period of time - how does she know whom is whom and where everything took place? And she doesn't. Seems relevant to me. I can't think of anyone I've ever known who was that prolific at that age - male or female.
I am saddened to hear of your ordeal at such a young age, but you are confirming a point I made many times in this thread:
I do believe that something traumatic happened to CBF when she was very young, possibly by her father or a father-figure (swimming coach), and then other incidents followed in her high-school and college years, to have made such a lasting trauma on her sexual well-being.
However, if no one, the FBI, the Senate, or anyone else is going to breach this sanctuary of her mental health history, we will never know the truth.
Here's the deal and I think it's common so I'll share it:
I was raped by a casual friend when I was about 18. It was a violent rape and I reported it to the police. Several weeks later, I also told my parents about it and their reaction was less than helpful, I'll just put it like that. The whole experience was very traumatic and this healthy, formerly happy middle class white girl couldn't really figure out how or why it all happened. I began to blame myself (which is common for sexual assault victims) - how could I have been so foolish as to get into that situation? (Even though it didn't involve partying or anything like that.) Long story short, I felt like flawed, damaged goods.
I also felt like my power had been stripped from me and I determined that I would never be powerless in a relationship again. I became cold and hard. I became promiscuous for a short amount of time - I wasn't going to CARE about sexual partners or activity. I also began to drink and party a lot more. Of course, this sort of behavior is self destructive. It was during this confused, and incredibly destructive, painful time in my life that I met the man who I would marry a year later. Why on earth did I marry him? Because he wanted to marry me. He saw me as something valuable, beautiful, etc. when I couldn't believe anyone could see that in me. My gosh, he wanted me to be the mother of his children!
He was also abusive. And I put up with it for years because I felt like I was getting what I deserved, for being so so stupid on so many levels.
It took me about ten years to get the counseling I needed, to forgive myself first and foremost, to realize my own self worth and dignity, to require that others respect and appreciate me - to BE a person that others would respect and appreciate. To understand that I alone am responsible for my own happiness, my own actions, etc. To understand that anger just feels more powerful than grief, but it has the same source. To assimilate what had happened to me, what I'd done afterward, who I had become, what I had allowed in my life, what I didn't need to allow, etc.
It wasn't easy to open that box that I'd shoved way back in my closet, but in order to move forward, I had to open it, clean it out, throw it away. I did it.
And in the process, I quit making excuses for my own behaviors as well. I quit making excuses for tolerating abuse. I quit making excuses for being weak, or irresponsible, or angry, or whatever.
In the age of social media, I took about one hour one day many years ago, and blocked some people on social media. Maybe not even one hour. Probably 15 minutes max. These were people from that time in my life and I am a much stronger, healthier, happier person now - no need to allow everyone who ever knew me back into my life.
Like I said earlier, I've thought more about that whole era in my life, including but not limited to the rape, more in the past 2 days than I've thought of it in 20 years.
My point is that it takes some effort, often at a professional level (which Dr. Ford certainly knows and has access to) to move past painful events, but it's certainly possible and certainly healthier than allowing one's life to be defined by such an isolated event, or even a series of events.
Yet this boy did not pin you down with his body, and he did not cover your mouth so that you couldn't cry out. You did not experience another boy in the room laughing at your helplessness, and you had not had anything to drink.
Your experience sounds like a common one among naive teenage girls (unfortunately). It does not sound at all like the same experience that Dr. Ford had as a 15 year old.
A few years later I was violently raped. Is that strong enough for you? See above post.
Which is probably why Trump agreed to the FBI investigation. There's nothing to investigate.
democrats want to delay, delay, delay......hello!!!! anybody with a little I.Q. can see this.
Democrats Senators asking for an FBI "report" are not going to vote for him anyway. Most said it in public minutes when he was nominated.
now watch next week, democrats are not going to accept the FBI report. They will say not enough witnesses were interviewed or "key" witnesses were not contacted and will demand the FBI to investigate again.....watch.
Or is it? If someone slept with 40 men in such a short period of time - how does she know whom is whom and where everything took place? And she doesn't. Seems relevant to me. I can't think of anyone I've ever known who was that prolific at that age - male or female.
Because the other 40 guys were consensual, and she probably has vague memories of the one night stand, whereas the attempted assault, it would be more burned in her mind.
Just like I been to a million parties, many are just a blur, but the one where I was stabbed really stands out and I remember every detail.
You'd think she'd get over it before 2012. Nothing actually happened to her other than she got scared. I understand how such an assault might shake someone up, but unless someone has other issues as well, I can't see how this one event was so mind boggling to her that it required years of counseling and she's STILL all shook up talking about it.
I have come to realize throughout my life that the the most difficult thing to explain to someone is feelings of empathy, It's like explaining color to a blind person or taste to a person without taste buds. You and I, or countless others might have reacted differently than Ford did but that does not change the fact that I and others are able to relate to how she might have felt and while there are others that cannot. It even has crossed my mind that at fourteen I began "making out", "necking" with boys but there were girls that I knew of the same age that were not. I imagined what a first encounter with a boy would be like if it was an assault as opposed to mutual and consensual and how that could have such a negative affect. I have no idea how "experienced" Ford was in that respect but it did cross my mind...and that is empathy.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
