2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumIn think the Media and the Dem should go slowly with this latest lady's accusation against Trump.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/another-woman-says-trump-sexually-assaulted-years-ago/Call me crazy, but I'm skeptical of her story as told by her and also Reporter Karen Tumulty of the Wash Post. I don't know about other lady's but unless I'm unconscious, I'd know if someone's hand was up my skirt before it got to my underwear. I'd know if there was a fly on my leg, much less someone's hand. I'd know if my skirt was lifted allowing someone's had to advance to that area. Also, if I'm sitting with my friends in a nightclub, and someone put his hand up my skirt, I'd let the whole damn club know that. I wouldn't just get up and move and continue my conversation. She said that she told her friends after she jumped up and she asked who that was, and they said, "Oh that's Donald Trump." Maybe people in New York are different, or women have changed since I was much younger, but her story seems incredible to me. I have a daughter and I can't imagine that she would have just moved away without saying something if someone sitting next to here put their hand up her skirt. For the record, the WP Reporter described it a little different. According to the reporters versions, "She said that, while talking to her friends on her left, she felt something on her thigh and slowly it made it's way up to her underwear area and then touched her vagina through her underwear. Again, unless I'm unconscious, I would know if something was slowly working it's way up my thigh to my vaginal area. Anyone who's had a fly land on them know what I'm talking about.
Trump has been saying that they will be able to prove before the end of the day, if these women are lying. Perhaps they planted someone with a fake story to report to the media to show that the media could be easily conned no matter how incredible the story is. That would probably be their proof if they can get someone to convince the media. That's the only way that I can see that they could disproved the claims that have been made in one day, without already having hired private detectives to investigate the person or persons making the accusation. Once lie could hurt the credibility of the others, and make Trump a victim.
I'm curious what other women here at DU think of this latest story. It's not my intention to try and get alerted for asking this question, so I'd hope people here would not try to report me for asking what others think of this latest story. Also, it could be the way that the Reporter told the story than the victim's version particularly since the version I have posted here is the victim's version which is not as descriptive, as the Reporter's version. If other's here find it more credible than I can accept that. After all, as I said, I haven't been a part of the dating scene in 35 years so it could just be me that's out of touch with what goes on in nightclubs.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Without getting permission of the person? This is a big problem, the victim is now questioned and this is a big reason most do not report the incidents at the time they occur. I am not saying all who report are not questionable but get some facts before destroying their story.
demmiblue
(36,875 posts)1) I don't think you are a woman, and
2) stop blaming the victims, and
3) hmmmm... .
pangaia
(24,324 posts)arthritisR_US
(7,291 posts)Last edited Fri Oct 14, 2016, 05:54 PM - Edit history (1)
in the way you would have in that situation. However, what you are mistaken about is that not all of us react the same way to the same stressor. The flight or fright response is an "or" proposition because some instantly react (fight) and some freeze up until the adrenaline recedes and they can react (fright). There are learned behaviours that differ, physiological and psychological. The uniqueness of each in conjunction with the others results in how we respond to any stressor/threat.
Saboburns
(2,807 posts)I would not put it past them to somehow get a woman to make accusations that they know they can successfully refute, as a way of trying to dismiss all the other accusations.
As a matter of fact I can't think of any other way for the Trump campaign can get out of there mess.
Nothing would surprise me anymore.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)displacedtexan
(15,696 posts)The internet and social media have changed the entire world's outlook on many, many issues, including sexual assault.
Did you not watch the Clarence Thomas hearings? That was the damned 1990s for you.
tammywammy
(26,582 posts)BobbyDrake
(2,542 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,208 posts)I had a similar thing happen to me at a club in 76 or 77. I was wearing jeans rather than a skirt, but his hand was between my legs and groping around and GONE before I could respond. It all happened in 2, maybe 3 seconds.
bettyellen
(47,209 posts)Way too far. And I was shocked and said nothing, just got the fuck away from him. When you might notice has to do with what you're wearing, if you've been drinking, if your paying attention to something else, etc. Also, it may have felt like it was much slower and longer than it was. Even creeping up your thigh slowly could only take 4/6 seconds, it just feels like forever.
BobbyDrake
(2,542 posts)Stop trying to tell these women how they "should have" reacted.
ecstatic
(32,727 posts)Just curious.
BTW, your post is as preposterous as a Trump surrogate who earlier today said one of the accusers was lying because she couldn't remember exact dates. I couldn't even tell you the year that some incidents I've endured occured. Some were during my childhood, before age 12. And no, I didn't file a police report, as that same disgusting Trump surrogate insisted was required for proof that it occurred.
You can't judge an incident by how you'd supposedly handle it, especially if you've never been in the situation.
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)Since you asked. Unless you know more about these women than you're saying.
I'll tell you what I know. I worked for a man who was about Trump's age at the time. Wearing a dress that day and bending down to get a file my boss grabbed me from behind. His finger tips penetrated me, through my light dress and thin panties, into my vagina. You read that right.
I jumped away from him. In a shocked and disgusted voice I told him to stop. But no, I didn't yell or call attention to what was happening. I didn't want anyone else to know. It wasn't to protect him. It was for me. I was embarrassed. I felt so much shame remembering the first time something like this had happened when almost no one believed me and the ones who did blamed me. And fear of losing the job - being orphaned and alone and desperately needing it.
So yeah. I'll call you crazy.
displacedtexan
(15,696 posts)a groping done by a fellow teacher to a teenage girl. This was sometime between 1995 and 1998. I can't remember exactly when it was, either. But it happened. When I told the vice principal what the girl had told me, the first words out of his mouth were, "Be very careful about what you're saying. This is a man's livlihood we're talking about."
adigal
(7,581 posts)the incident right under it.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)He brought this on himself.
Cakes488
(874 posts)position before?
NoGoodNamesLeft
(2,056 posts)That means he could have easily done what she accused him of before she could react. She may also have been drinking and had a delayed response. And since she had not even made eye contact with him, let alone speak to him she could have been drunk off her ass and he still had no damn business grabbing her crotch.
I found her very believable...especially considering it was not even her that went to the media...it was a friend who she had told about it a very long time ago who contacted them and told them to reach out to her. She wasn't even going to tell her story at all.
renate
(13,776 posts)I kind of wondered the same thing when I read this account, but I suspect that when she said "vagina" she really meant her vulva. It's not uncommon even among women to refer to the external genitalia (which would be pretty readily accessible to a groper) as the vagina (which would be somewhat harder to get to in these circumstances). I don't get why so many women, and almost all men, use the wrong word, but whatever.
OMG this election is getting so far beyond anything I could ever ever have imagined....
A-Schwarzenegger
(15,596 posts)is that different people react differently. Have you heard that message? Do you understand it?
athena
(4,187 posts)The part where she talks about how one tends to minimize the importance of what happened is spot on.
And no, when one is groped, one is usually taken by surprise and does not do anything to draw attention to oneself. There is simply not enough time to reason, "Wait, I'm being groped in the genitals. What's going on? Who is doing this? Can this really be happening? Oh, wait, this is sexual assault. Let me scream. Because of course, everyone will believe me and side with me and this jerk will be humiliated." You're barely realizing what is happening before it's all over, and you're left in shock over what just happened.
By the way, I think it's pretty despicable to suggest that a woman who says she was sexually assaulted is making it all up when you know nothing about her and have no evidence to suggest that she is lying.
adigal
(7,581 posts)Seems like she and her friends kind of blew it off.
The Apprentice woman has a story that they will be more able to take apart, as she stayed in the room, and went back to sit next to him, after he grabbed her breast and rubbed his groin on her. I understand that she was probably in complete disbelief, but you know what the other side will say: why didn't she leave, why didn't she scream, yell, run??? They don't understand the fight, flight or FREEZE. When something like this happens, many people freeze.
JTFrog
(14,274 posts)How many women will it take coming forward before you stop blaming the victims?
I'll give you a hint; Having heard Trump brag about sexually assaulting women, if your answer is more than one, then being "out of touch with what goes on in nightclubs" is not your problem.
lame54
(35,313 posts)nolabear
(41,990 posts)I read the article to confirm what I thought to be true. You say you'd stop anyone whose hand went slowly up your leg and touched your vagina. But that's nowhere in the description. If she was at a party and wearing a miniskirt, he could easily have touched her high on her leg and under that skirt quite quickly.
We believe things for interesting reasons though. I actually thought "I believe this one" (which I'm inclined to anyway) because she mentioned recognizing not his hair but his eyebrows. They are distinctive, but the hair is such an easy target that to mention being struck by his bushy eyebrows just sounds real.
On another note, I followed a FB thread this morning, a conversation among a group of flight attendants, that made my hair stand on end. Apparently the frequency of unwanted gropings on airplanes is shocking. Lots of minors, lots of women, lots of arrests.
Mellomugwump
(93 posts)Mellomugwump
(93 posts)When you're sitting down, there's not a lot of ground to have to cover when wearing a mini to get to the underwear. She told the people around her but didn't make a huge scene, which is exactly what I would have done as a young woman.
The hard part about sexual assault is that it is usually a she-said, he-said situation, which is why so many people don't report it. That said, I don't think it's bad to not always assume the woman is being truthful. It's not like there haven't been false accusations made throughout history. I don't believe the women that have accused Bill Clinton of sexual assault, so I'm not sure I understand why so many people are piling on here.
And I do believe this woman's story.
True_Blue
(3,063 posts)And getting away with it. I was groped by a stranger in a club when I was young and when something like that happens to you, you go into a shocklike state or I did anyway. I'm not even sure how long it lasted. Probably only a minute...I don't know. I didn't scream or hit him. I just got away. When I told a friend what happened, she asked me why I didn't hit him or scream and I didn't know why I didn't. Looking back I think I was literally in shock.