When fair is not fair
From the blog Student Activism comes an update on the story about a professor who hired a student for sex through Craigslist, then slapped her and hit her with a belt. He's back in class.
Backstory: In April of 2008, University of Michigan Near Eastern Studies professor Yaron Eliav went to Craigslist looking for sex. He contacted a woman who turned out to be a 22 year old Michigan law student. They met in a hotel room. She agreed to $300.
According to the student, he assaulted her, slapping her without her consent. "[S[he had allowed Eliav to strike her buttocks with a belt, but when heslapped her twice in the face she became upset. The student claimedthat she had suffered temporary vision problems after the event but hadno sustaining injuries." (Mahalo.com).
She had turned to sex work out of desperation, not a little fueled by depression; this sent her into a tailspin of self-mutilation. Not that sex workers who freely choose such a career would not be devastated as well. Hello, it's assault, people.
She reported him and was, as you might predict, not taken seriously. Eventually, both of them were charged with the same offense, using a computer to commit a crime.
He was not charged with assault and battery, or sexual assault.
The sad thing about this is that it's really not an unusual case. If the woman involved had not been a law student, it probably wouldn't have made the papers, because (a) she probably wouldn't have bothered to try to press charges, and (b) if she had tried, she would probably have been ignored and denied.
Of course the full slut-shaming brigade came out for the party. Comments on the story in The Michigan Daily demand to know the name of the woman so that her diseased body can be shunned, take the fact that the accusations of the woman not turning into a criminal charge as proof positive that she's lying, claim "what he does with his personal life is personal and as long he doesn't mix his personal and teaching lives together, I don't care" (assault? really?), and even ignorantly claim that it's always the customers who get in trouble and not the sex worker!
Read the comments about him on RateMyProfessors and you see the kind of teacher most good students would love to have. Funny, smart, engaged, "nerdy," not a hard teacher but so enthusiastic it's hard not to learn from him. This is the kind of guy who hits women for fun. He called the slapping, the part that the woman did not consent to, "like a game."
This is the face of sexual assault. As fun and friendly as this professor is, he still hurts women — according to reports, this isn't the first time he's done this. And now he's back on campus, back to teaching. Back in the faces of women who, statistically, will face sexual assault sometime in their lives. Maybe by someone just like Eliav.
And before someone comes in trying to defend the kink, do your research. Ethical BDSM does not involve people who don't want to be involved, and it does not escalate without consent. Even if the student was naive in what to expect from someone who says he just wants a little spanking session, that doesn't make her guilty for her own assault when he oversteps the bounds.
Backstory: In April of 2008, University of Michigan Near Eastern Studies professor Yaron Eliav went to Craigslist looking for sex. He contacted a woman who turned out to be a 22 year old Michigan law student. They met in a hotel room. She agreed to $300.
According to the student, he assaulted her, slapping her without her consent. "[S[he had allowed Eliav to strike her buttocks with a belt, but when heslapped her twice in the face she became upset. The student claimedthat she had suffered temporary vision problems after the event but hadno sustaining injuries." (Mahalo.com).
She had turned to sex work out of desperation, not a little fueled by depression; this sent her into a tailspin of self-mutilation. Not that sex workers who freely choose such a career would not be devastated as well. Hello, it's assault, people.
She reported him and was, as you might predict, not taken seriously. Eventually, both of them were charged with the same offense, using a computer to commit a crime.
He was not charged with assault and battery, or sexual assault.
The sad thing about this is that it's really not an unusual case. If the woman involved had not been a law student, it probably wouldn't have made the papers, because (a) she probably wouldn't have bothered to try to press charges, and (b) if she had tried, she would probably have been ignored and denied.
Of course the full slut-shaming brigade came out for the party. Comments on the story in The Michigan Daily demand to know the name of the woman so that her diseased body can be shunned, take the fact that the accusations of the woman not turning into a criminal charge as proof positive that she's lying, claim "what he does with his personal life is personal and as long he doesn't mix his personal and teaching lives together, I don't care" (assault? really?), and even ignorantly claim that it's always the customers who get in trouble and not the sex worker!
Read the comments about him on RateMyProfessors and you see the kind of teacher most good students would love to have. Funny, smart, engaged, "nerdy," not a hard teacher but so enthusiastic it's hard not to learn from him. This is the kind of guy who hits women for fun. He called the slapping, the part that the woman did not consent to, "like a game."
This is the face of sexual assault. As fun and friendly as this professor is, he still hurts women — according to reports, this isn't the first time he's done this. And now he's back on campus, back to teaching. Back in the faces of women who, statistically, will face sexual assault sometime in their lives. Maybe by someone just like Eliav.
And before someone comes in trying to defend the kink, do your research. Ethical BDSM does not involve people who don't want to be involved, and it does not escalate without consent. Even if the student was naive in what to expect from someone who says he just wants a little spanking session, that doesn't make her guilty for her own assault when he oversteps the bounds.
Posted by oldfeminist at 9/6/2009 2:34 PM 
Categories: school, violence, education, sex work, rape
Tags: violence education school sex work rape
Categories: school, violence, education, sex work, rape
Tags: violence education school sex work rape
Just recently, I think within the past two weeks or so, a feminist blog had a link to a newspaper article about how three prostitutes robbed a would-be john. Unfortunately, I can't find it now, but the comments were remarkably similar to comments in the Michigan Daily, even though in the Ann Arbor case the sex worker was the victim. It doesn't matter which role a woman occupies in a crime, especially if she has sex in exchange for money- she's always a slut who deserves whatever she gets, she should have seen it coming, blah blah blah. No one was insinuating that the john deserved to be robbed because he was soliciting prostitutes, that because he consented to sex with those women they were entitled to do whatever they pleased with him, or anything like that.
No, in the patriarchy, women are nonhuman and men are just nice people acting on the completely natural urge to get their rocks off, regardless of their motivations or the way they go about doing it.
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I remember that -- one of the more galling aspects of the commentary was that the three women were "not good looking as advertised" (aka "fat") and the police made a point of saying that the guy who didn't think they were bad-looking was the drunkest of the lot.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/theblotter/2009787305_--_from_times_staff_reporter_2.html
I probably saw the same discussion of it on a feminist blog but can't seem to find it now.
And you're right. It doesn't matter what women are doing, they can't win. There's always a judgment that can be made on them because they are women. Shouldn't have been dressed like that. Shouldn't have said anything provocative, anything that would make someone angry. Shouldn't have even been there.
There's always something the woman says, does, looks like, *is*, that disqualifies her from any sympathy or consideration.
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