Pre-Med Accused and Cleared of Rape Charges

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Ugh, well this thread is unsurprisingly filled with horrible. Shout out to @mehc012 and @LizzyM for being on point as always.

This is a clear case of rape. I had a friend who sent this to me about how to explain consent, I feel like some people here may need a refresher course so here it is -
If you’re still struggling, just imagine instead of initiating sex, you’re making them a cup of tea.

You say, “Hey, would you like a cup of tea?” and they go, “OMG, f*ck yes, I would f*cking LOVE a cup of tea! Thank you!” Then you know they want a cup of tea.
If you say, “Hey, would you like a cup of tea?” and they um and ahh and say, “I’m not really sure…” then you can make them a cup of tea or not, but be aware that they might not drink it, and if they don’t drink it then — this is the important bit — don’t make them drink it. You can’t blame them for you going to the effort of making the tea on the off chance they wanted it; you just have to deal with them not drinking it. Just because you made it doesn’t mean you are entitled to watch them drink it.

If they say, “No, thank you,” then don’t make them tea. At all. Don’t make them tea, don’t make them drink tea, don’t get annoyed at them for not wanting tea. They just don’t want tea, okay?

They might say, “Yes, please, that’s kind of you,” and then when the tea arrives they actually don’t want the tea at all. Sure, that’s kind of annoying as you’ve gone to the effort of making the tea, but they remain under no obligation to drink the tea. They did want tea, now they don’t. Sometimes people change their mind in the time it takes to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk. And it’s okay for people to change their mind, and you are still not entitled to watch them drink it even though you went to the trouble of making it.

If they are unconscious, don’t make them tea. Unconscious people don’t want tea and can’t answer the question, “Do you want tea?” because they are unconscious.

Okay, maybe they were conscious when you asked them if they wanted tea, and they said yes, but in the time it took you to boil that kettle, brew the tea and add the milk they are now unconscious. You should just put the tea down, make sure the unconscious person is safe, and — this is the important bit — don’t make them drink the tea.
If someone said yes to tea, started drinking it and then passed out before they’d finished it, don’t keep on pouring it down their throat. Take the tea away and make sure they are safe. Because unconscious people don’t want tea. Trust me on this.

If someone said “yes” to tea around your house last Saturday, that doesn’t mean that they want you to make them tea all the time. They don’t want you to come around unexpectedly to their place and make them tea and force them to drink it going, “BUT YOU WANTED TEA LAST WEEK,” or to wake up to find you pouring tea down their throat going “BUT YOU WANTED TEA LAST NIGHT.”
 
aprimenumber said:
Really, dude? Really?
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Wow, I actually just did not get that, because it is incomprehensible to me that someone would joke about that while in a thread about the consequences of that very thing. This world makes me sad sometimes.
touchpause13 said:
Nothing brings out the amateur comedians like a thread about rape
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🙁 I hate it when you're right, you know 😛
 
I don't know why you guys are so insistent on labeling the guy as a rapist or not. In human behavior, nothing is really black and white as there are shades of gray. It's not always nonconsensual even if they say stop as there are different ways of saying stop with different meanings. For example, if the girl is mad at you and you're trying to cajole them and they're saying stop but kinda mad/sorta playfully. Is that rape? I notice that it's the women who are totally against this guy but none of us were there with them at the moment. It's a hard thing to judge when you're not there and even when you are, you may not understand the entire backstory of the relationship. I don't think it's not right to end a person's career because of a mistake or a miscommunication. It's also very easy for people to make false accusations and dealing with them is incredibly stressful and takes a lot of time. That's not to diminish what happened to victims of assault but there are at least two sides to every story
 
Psai said:
I don't know why you guys are so insistent on labeling the guy as a rapist or not. In human behavior, nothing is really black and white as there are shades of gray. It's not always nonconsensual even if they say stop as there are different ways of saying stop with different meanings. For example, if the girl is mad at you and you're trying to cajole them and they're saying stop but kinda mad/sorta playfully. Is that rape? I notice that it's the women who are totally against this guy but none of us were there with them at the moment. It's a hard thing to judge when you're not there and even when you are, you may not understand the entire backstory of the relationship. I don't think it's not right to end a person's career because of a mistake or a miscommunication. It's also very easy for people to make false accusations and dealing with them is incredibly stressful and takes a lot of time. That's not to diminish what happened to victims of assault but there are at least two sides to every story
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She very clearly communicated for him to stop, per her testimony. Not like, keep going sort of stop. Like, crying and begging him to stop. That's not really gray area. This guy clearly wanted to have a sexual experience with her that was not a good time and was not consensual. Anyone who knows anything about BDSM understands exactly why what he did was completely unacceptable on every level. This isn't some gray area, he broke every rule and should never be a physician, because he forcibly sexually assaulted an unwilling partner. There is no gray area there.
 
Mad Jack said:
She very clearly communicated for him to stop, per her testimony. Not like, keep going sort of stop. Like, crying and begging him to stop. That's not really gray area. This guy clearly wanted to have a sexual experience with her that was not a good time and was not consensual. Anyone who knows anything about BDSM understands exactly why what he did was completely unacceptable on every level. This isn't some gray area, he broke every rule and should never be a physician, because he forcibly sexually assaulted an unwilling partner. There is no gray area there.
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This times a billion.
She was literally crying in pain and begging him to stop. There is no reason to doubt her story. @Psai you can't pull the "you don't know the relationship card". What he did isn't acceptable BDSM behavior - at ALL. Vaguely saying you are okay with doing something dangerous isn't informed consent, and it's very clear that when he started hitting her, she did not want it. She told him she did not want it, and he continued.

This pisses me off so much that people act like apologists towards cases like this that are extremely clear cut. She literally did everything right - she told him no, she went to the police, and still people act like she's lying. This type of behavior is the reason why people don't go to the police, why they hide it for years and years, why they don't tell anyone, why the blame themselves, why they hurt themselves both physically and emotionally. And for people who weren't perfect victims it's devastating, knowing that there is no way you can ever get any sort of justice for what happened - that you carry all the burden of the trauma, that there will be no punishment for the person(s) who caused you damn near the worst pain imaginable.
 
I don't think I'll ever fully understand the need to minimize victim's testimony. Just world fallacy perhaps? It just blows my mind how someone could read what she said happened and say "you don't know the relationship"
To be frank @Psai, I don't think you know anything about rape.
 
Mad Jack said:
She very clearly communicated for him to stop, per her testimony. Not like, keep going sort of stop. Like, crying and begging him to stop. That's not really gray area. This guy clearly wanted to have a sexual experience with her that was not a good time and was not consensual. Anyone who knows anything about BDSM understands exactly why what he did was completely unacceptable on every level. This isn't some gray area, he broke every rule and should never be a physician, because he forcibly sexually assaulted an unwilling partner. There is no gray area there.
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So we're going to trust someone's word absolutely just because. No one has ever lied or embellished anything ever.
Innocent until proven guilty is what the legal system works on
 
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Psai said:
So we're going to trust someone's word absolutely just because. No one has ever lied or embellished anything ever.
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It's extremely rare for rape victims to lie.
And let me point out that you are believing a alleged rapist just because, and at that he said he did something wrong, it's not like he said it never happened.
 
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I'm pretty sure there was a Law and Order SVU episode about this exact scenario. The rapist guy was found guilty.
 
His defense was basically "she agreed to bondage so I didn't have to listen misunderstood when she said no." Which, by the way, is not how bondage or consent works.

He doesn't appear to be disagreeing about what happened, just about whether he was required to get clear consent for what he did. He thought he was roleplaying 50 shades of grey...I'm inclined to agree, in that 50 Shades of Grey is also full of rape and a clear misunderstanding of the role of consent.

I don't have to understand their relationship at all to know that proceeding with sex when someone is saying "no, stop" is rape.
 
Psai said:
So we're going to trust someone's word absolutely just because. No one has ever lied or embellished anything ever.
Innocent until proven guilty is what the legal system works on
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His innocence in a court of law does not change what he did.
 
touchpause13 said:
He wasn't proven innocent though, he just wasn't indicted (sp?)
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He does not have to prove his innocence. It is assumed until guilt is proven. Kind of like how science can't prove that something doesn't exist, it can only prove that it has not been observed.
 
Psai said:
So we're going to trust someone's word absolutely just because. No one has ever lied or embellished anything ever.
Innocent until proven guilty is what the legal system works on
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Good thing this ain't the legal system then.

Normally I'd agree with you on this issue, especially when there's often a degree of ambiguity brought on by alcohol, but the testimonies (and physical evidence) are pretty damning on his character, even if ultimately there isn't enough to pin a crime on him.
 
I mean, is our only view of the evidence from the articles written about it? How do you know that the quotes they pulled were not tailored to fit a certain narrative? Again I am not making a case for or against this particular guy, just a general logic question.
 
CaliforniaDreamer said:
I mean, is our only view of the evidence from the articles written about it? How do you know that the quotes they pulled were not tailored to fit a certain narrative? Again I am not making a case for or against this particular guy, just a general logic question.
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I would definitely like to see the transcripts as well.
 
Also, just wanted to break this down because there are so many things bothering me in here.
Psai said:
It's not always nonconsensual even if they say stop
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You're right. If you have prearranged with somebody ahead of time that they are to continue when you say 'stop' and established a safeword, in that very specific instance it is not rape to continue after they say 'no, stop'. Outside of that very specific scenario, however, yes, it is always nonconsensual once a party has said 'no' or 'stop'.
Psai said:
as there are different ways of saying stop with different meanings.
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Stop has one meaning: discontinue your current course of action.
Psai said:
For example, if the girl is mad at you and you're trying to cajole them and they're saying stop but kinda mad/sorta playfully. Is that rape?
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Yup. And maybe 9/10 times you won't get called on it and everyone will change their minds and move forward, but in 10/10 of those times the person who said 'stop', no matter how 'playfully', would be justified in calling you to account if you did not. If you want to risk hurting someone because they might not be too upset if you continue, well...you have different priorities than I do, and I sincerely hope (for your sake and the other party's) that you always come up lucky with that gamble.
Psai said:
I notice that it's the women who are totally against this guy
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No, there are men in this thread who also understand that it is rape. I'm not sure where you were going with this...women get worked up over issues of rape? Cuz that's not a particularly sympathetic approach to take on this, bud.
Psai said:
but none of us were there with them at the moment. It's a hard thing to judge when you're not there and even when you are, you may not understand the entire backstory of the relationship.
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Again, backstory of the relationship doesn't matter when the story that both parties agree on is "she said 'no, stop,' and the dude felt justified in continuing with sex.
Psai said:
I don't think it's not right to end a person's career because of a mistake or a miscommunication.
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The propensity to miscommunicate in a way that puts other people at risk may not be a jailable offense, but it's hardly desirable in someone who will have to care for others and sometimes make decisions for those who are at risk or unable to act alone.
Psai said:
It's also very easy for people to make false accusations and dealing with them is incredibly stressful and takes a lot of time. That's not to diminish what happened to victims of assault but there are at least two sides to every story
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It's actually not easy on the victim to accuse their rapist, so it's not just some simple walk in the park to go screaming 'rape' everywhere. There are 2 sides of this story, but as I said before, even the best case scenario presented by the defendant is one in which he is unsuited for the medical profession. That is listening to his side of things.
 
LChristmas said:
I would definitely like to see the transcripts as well.
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Everyone seems ready to declare this guy a rapist who should never be a doctor after reading one article about it. I agree that I would never want someone who doesn't understand boundaries and moral lines like this guy apparently does to be admitted to medical school, but I also wouldn't want someone attacked by the media losing their opportunities. It reminds me of when some athlete loses all of their sponsors after some bad press that turns out to be false in the end. Seems like judgement by mob rather than by court of law.
 
What I see is that the article is written with a certain slant as the author provide multiple quotes from the accuser's testimony but none from the person who was accused. They do provide a quote from his lawyer but it ends there. I don't see any mention of cops and I don't see how a television show is relevant. Also, quotation marks are generally reserved for quotes.

"[Judge] Chiampas asked if the woman had said anything to Hossain when he bound her wrists or while he allegedly sexually assaulted her. She answered no to both questions."

It seems as though the issue is the physical violence of hitting her with the belt, not the act of sex itself as they have had previous sexual encounters that included bondage.
 
Psai said:
What I see is that the article is written with a certain slant as the author provide multiple quotes from the accuser's testimony but none from the person who was accused. They do provide a quote from his lawyer but it ends there. I don't see any mention of cops and I don't see how a television show is relevant. Also, quotation marks are generally reserved for quotes.

"[Judge] Chiampas asked if the woman had said anything to Hossain when he bound her wrists or while he allegedly sexually assaulted her. She answered no to both questions."

It seems as though the issue is the physical violence of hitting her with the belt, not the act of sex itself as they have had previous sexual encounters that included bondage.
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I imagine his lawyer told him not to speak to the press. His lawyer is quoted a few times in there, basically reinforcing that the defense was "he was roleplaying 50 shades of grey."
In my mind, if the person you were 'roleplaying' with is remotely unaware of what you're roleplaying, you didn't discuss things ahead of time or get appropriate consent. So if that's his defense, it's not cutting it for me, and I stand by my earlier comments that either way (his version is correct and she's completely lying about not knowing they were doing 50SoG roleplay or hers and he straight-up raped her) he is unfit for med school. If he's got a better one, why hasn't that been brought up?
 
Psai said:
What I see is that the article is written with a certain slant as the author provide multiple quotes from the accuser's testimony but none from the person who was accused. They do provide a quote from his lawyer but it ends there. I don't see any mention of cops and I don't see how a television show is relevant. Also, quotation marks are generally reserved for quotes.
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You can be almost completely certain that the kid's lawyers have hushed him up and told him to avoid speaking about the case in public other than the basics (denying the assault etc.), since any slip of the tongue can be used against him.
Psai said:
"[Judge] Chiampas asked if the woman had said anything to Hossain when he bound her wrists or while he allegedly sexually assaulted her. She answered no to both questions."

It seems as though the issue is the physical violence of hitting her with the belt, not the act of sex itself as they have had previous sexual encounters that included bondage.
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So are you arguing that it's not rape, just mere assault on a classmate? Because you're still in a pretty dark place, buddy.

Also, just as a disclaimer, I'm a dude, if that's relevant at all to you.
 
Psai said:
It seems as though the issue is the physical violence of hitting her with the belt, not the act of sex itself as they have had previous sexual encounters that included bondage.
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Having had sex before, even with bondage, does not give him carte blanche on all future encounters.
Once she said 'stop', whether it was solely prompted by the belting or not, any further action which he took upon her was inappropriate and nonconsensual.

If a girl has slept with her boyfriend, is making out with him, he belts her in the face, she says 'stop!' and then he has sex with her...she was assaulted and raped, regardless of the fact that she would have consensually had sex with him that night had he not hit her.
 
Please re - read the tea thing Psai
 
To the men in this thread jumping to defend the accused and crying about not jumping to conclusions, I give one piece of advice: pick a better fight.

As someone who does try to avoid jumping to conclusions when cases of sexual assault/rape are discussed that are not your typical clear cut Hollywood stranger rape scenario, I can tell you this is not one of those scenarios that could be ambiguous.

Setting aside the victim blaming/defamation, the main points you seem to bring up are that we don't know the relationship or context of their encounter. Let's talk about what actually matters, both in court and in the real world. BOTH PARTIES agreed on the following situation:

Party A wanted to engage in acts depicted in 50SoG. Party B agreed to engage in bdsm acts (whether she knows/has read the book does not matter). A and B start engaging in said acts. At first B enjoys it and communicates consent to continue. Then A begins other, rougher acts which B no longer finds enjoyable. B communicates her desire to stop said acts by saying "stop, no" and other variations which in this context (since a safe word had not been established and they have not agreed that "stop, no, etc.." will not mean what it normally means) means she no longer consents to anything done after this moment.
A continues despite B's pleas. A continues until B is in an emotional and physical state that any decent, empathetic human being would understand to mean she has not enjoyed what just happened.
A has raped B.

If somehow you're still finding trouble understanding why this is the case, entertain the following scenario.
Apply the above account of what happened but change the following:
Pretend you're B and A is this uber hot grill you've been intimate with and is into freaky ****. She eventually persuaded you to try stuff she's read in this book called 50 Shades of Butt Stuff. And the stuff you stopped consenting to involved her whole fist in the place where the sun don't shine.
Do you not agree A has raped/sexually assaulted you?

If your answer is still no, may [higher power] have mercy on your soul and any future and past sexual partners.

(I apologize for the crude example, but it's in the language that actually gets across to these sort of people)
 
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I'm not picking a fight, but I am wondering where you are getting all of your info from? Is it just this one article or is there a transcript of the court proceedings? I don't think you can draw any conclusions about the case without first examining the source...
 
The only thing I have to add to what dr. Cat said is that the VAST majority of rapes are not some stranger jumping out of the bushes. More likely than not it's someone the victim knows and it usually takes place in the home of the victim or the rapist.
 
CaliforniaDreamer said:
I'm not picking a fight, but I am wondering where you are getting all of your info from? Is it just this one article or is there a transcript of the court proceedings? I don't think you can draw any conclusions about the case without first examining the source...
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All of the articles were drawn from the same series of quotes, it appears. To me, again, the key point is that the defending attorney is not disputing the events as described, but merely arguing that his client was under the impression that pressing forward was acceptable because 'they were roleplaying'. That's it, that's his argument. I'm surely not going to jump in and claim that the girl's testimony of how the events unfolded was false when the defense isn't even arguing that.
 
Apologies for the misplaced joke all, in all seriousness rape is an extremely pressing issue in college campuses that hopefully gets addressed more seriously after the Oklahoma fraternity sing along.
 
The whole reason that we look at a person's background to determine whether to give them opportunities in the present and future is that severe deviation from cultural and ethical standards signal flawed character.

Yes, there are people who were just young and dumb when they made their single serious error in judgment. The nature of this young man's admitted behavior displays a disregard for others, for safety and robust consent, which are incompatible with a career in medicine. His response in the aftermath was not contrition or concern for the young woman he harmed, but only an attempt to avoid the consequences of his actions. That suggests to me that this isn't a mistake, but a manifestation of a deeply selfish person who should not be trusted in the future.

Maybe charges won't stick for this. But this won't be the only chance he will ever have to ruin his name. In all likelihood that he will not make it through his college career without additional red flags arising.
 
didn't read through the comments, but all I can say is if the first thing that comes to your mind while reporters ask you if you'll ever talk to the girl again is "I just want to be a doctor", you're a complete f*****g weirdo. how about not going to prison first? lmao, I truly hope this dude never becomes a doc
 
DoctorLacrosse said:
didn't read through the comments, but all I can say is if the first thing that comes to your mind while reporters ask you if you'll ever talk to the girl again is "I just want to be a doctor", you're a complete f*****g weirdo. how about not going to prison first? lmao, I truly hope this dude never becomes a doc
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I feel like he could have done his (theoretical) medical career a lot of good by not mentioning that he was a pre-med.
 
aprimenumber said:
I feel like he could have done his (theoretical) medical career a lot of good by not mentioning that he was a pre-med.
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I agree 100%. probably the dumbest thing he could've done, but leave it to your stereotypical pre-med to be completely unable to not mention the fact that they're a pre-med.
 
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This case is very murky. He asked the girl to resist, and she did. It would certainly make sense that he believed she was still role playing in her resistance.
 
As @Goro made a point, it's possible this guy's record could slip through the cracks. I know a guy who had what we'd today call "revenge porn" charges against him who now is a class president of his law school. (he was a well-connected kid with a good lawyer who brought it down to a misdemeanor.... yes he was/is a sociopath)

Though this case has been all over the media. His shot at schools in IL is probably nil for at least the next half decade.
 
BlueCircle said:
This case is very murky. He asked the girl to resist, and she did. It would certainly make sense that he believed she was still role playing in her resistance.
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That's like saying "If you agree with me, then continue breathing." If the girl was crying and shaking her head, the humane and sensible thing to do would be to stop and to make sure she was okay before any sexual assault actually occurs.

The murkiness arises from the extent of the consent given. While the legal basis for criminal prosecution may be debatable, I feel like the testimonies from both sides have more or less painted a vividly negative portrait of his character. I would definitely not feel comfortable having him as my future kid(s)' pediatrician.
 
BlueCircle said:
This case is very murky. He asked the girl to resist, and she did. It would certainly make sense that he believed she was still role playing in her resistance.
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Cool. Then in the future I'll earn my rent money by approaching random people with a knife and saying "I want you to pretend you don't want to give me your wallet". I assume they'll be into it, I'll have no reason to suspect that their resistance is real, and I'll just count the money as payment for fulfilling the fantasies I presume they had.
 
What kills me about this thread is that there not only is the stink of rape apologism and just general misunderstanding of consent, but there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of BDSM as well.
There could not have been informed consent in this case, because he didn't specify what he wanted to do. He vaguely said that he wanted to do something dangerous and she agreed to that general concept. That's not her giving consent to what happened. What normally happens is that everything is hashed out IN DETAIL before any sort of sexual activity takes place. If you want to have sex where "no" is not the safe word, you have to specify what the safe word actually is and going without any sort of way for the submissive to tap out is very rare and really should be reserved for partners who have been together for a really long time and are very experienced with this. What he did is like saying, I want to do an operation on you, then just amputating someone's leg without any further discussion. There could be no consent because she didn't know what was going to happen, and furthermore the standard meaning of stop is fuking stop. My cat knows that. It's not a complicated concept.
 
touchpause13 said:
What kills me about this thread is that there not only is the stink of rape apologism and just general misunderstanding of consent, but there seems to be a complete lack of understanding of BDSM as well.
There could not have been informed consent in this case, because he didn't specify what he wanted to do. He vaguely said that he wanted to do something dangerous and she agreed to that general concept. That's not her giving consent to what happened. What normally happens is that everything is hashed out IN DETAIL before any sort of sexual activity takes place. If you want to have sex where "no" is not the safe word, you have to specify what the safe word actually is and going without any sort of way for the submissive to tap out is very rare and really should be reserved for partners who have been together for a really long time and are very experienced with this. What he did is like saying, I want to do an operation on you, then just amputating someone's leg without any further discussion. There could be no consent because she didn't know what was going to happen, and furthermore the standard meaning of stop is fuking stop. My cat knows that. It's not a complicated concept.
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That surgery analogy is super spot-on. Kudos.:=|:-):
 
BlueCircle said:
This case is very murky. He asked the girl to resist, and she did. It would certainly make sense that he believed she was still role playing in her resistance.
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The trouble is, he never told her what they were going to do. He just asked "do you trust me?" tied her down, blindfolded her, and then started beating the hell out of her. She never consented to that, and was quite clear with her desire for him to stop, from all descriptions provided in the case. She clearly didn't know what the hell he was going to try, and once things crossed the line for her, she was afforded no opportunity for him to stop. This case only looks murky if you have no idea how these sorts of encounters should play out. By not establishing clear rules beforehand, and not establishing a safe word, you are the one who is in the wrong if your partner has no chance to end things, and you have raped them if you lost their consent and they were unable to make you stop. That is cut and dry. By not establishing rules and obtaining explicit consent beforehand, he set himself up to rape her, and that is on him in every way.

Worse still, anyone with any degree of empathy or understanding of human emotion can tell when things have gone bad during sex. Either he is unable to comprehend human emotions completely (which is rare) or he knew she wanted him to stop and didn't give a damn and kept going. There's a huge difference between a roleplaying "stop" with a bit of feigned struggle and a crying, screaming, struggling to escape stop.
 
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