Sexual molestation?

[Seth]

It seems that fake memories of rape typically (although not always) require a particular type of shonky counselling...

You mean like the kind provided by man-hating feminazis?

[Blind groper]

Shonky counselling is definitely a problem. But it is not the only way memories are altered. Since relatively few people go to counsellors, but everyone ponders their memories, I strongly suspect the major cause of memory change is self editing.

There was another experiment I was told about in a lecture. The experimenters took a bunch of volunteeers and told them this was a test of long term memory. They showed the subjects some grainy old photos of a circus and fairground. The subjects were told this was a fair they had gone to as young children. This was a lie. The subjects had never been to a fair at that age. The subjects were asked to go home and write up all they could remember of that fair. They were also told not to forget the hot air balloon ride.

All the subjects returned with varying degrees of false memories about the fair written down, and 25% had also written up the hot air balloon ride, which they never took, with some writing in considerable detail.

Human memory is terribly suggestible. All that is needed is a hint, and we are capable of inventing or changing memories to a great extent.

So my speculation is that, if a celebrity has sex with 1000 women (as Sting claims he did), then how many of them who regret the incident will later 'remember' it as rape?

[laklak]

Given our rapidly evolving on-line lives it won't be a problem in the future, since we'll be twexting (or whatever) every fucking thing we do.

I'm off to take my second shit of the day, I'll report back with a critique shortly.

[JimC]

BG wrote:

...So my speculation is that, if a celebrity has sex with 1000 women (as Sting claims he did), then how many of them who regret the incident will later 'remember' it as rape?...

Damn him for eating into my share!

[Blind groper]

There was a time, not so long ago, when "recovered memory" put a lot of innocent men in prison. I wonder if this 'celebrity rape' thing is not just something similar. There are several celebrities under the gun right now, and they all claim vehemently that they never raped anyone. What if they are correct?

Our courts are not known for a high degree of appreciation for the findings of scientists, and most of the lawyers defending the accused will never have heard of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus or her findings about memory malleability. When a dozen women appear out of the woodwork and claim to have been raped by a celebrity, that level of 'evidence' will prove very convincing to lawyers, judges, and juries. Even if it is wrong.

[Hermit]

So my speculation is that, if a celebrity has sex with 1000 women (as Sting claims he did), then how many of them who regret the incident will later 'remember' it as rape?

It makes me wonder how many of those incidents involved "enhanced persuasion".

[pErvinalia]

Yeah, it might not have even had to be a counsellor. Any "persuasion" could have come from friends and family, and even the media to an extent.

[Blind groper]

The thing is, though, how many of those celebrities actually broke the law. Rape is illegal. Seduction is not. Even seduction that may involve 'enhanced persuasion', as long as it is not coercion. There is no doubt that these celebrities who bonk hundreds of women are not "moral" in the old fashioned sense. But that does not mean they are breaking the law.

If they end up charged, and facing prosecution in court, and a bunch of women with false memories are hostile witnesses, then what value has 'beyond reasonable doubt' got?

[pErvinalia]

I took Hermit's post to be about enhanced memory via persuasion from counsellors.

[Hermit]

The metaphor "enhanced persuasion" was meant to be analogous to the meaning of "enhanced interrogation".

[Blind groper]

Fair enough.

My limited expertise on the seduction techniques of celebrities would suggest that not too much enhancement is required. Lots of young women are very happy to engage in sex with their actor/rock star idol, and need little extra persuasion.

It is when the seduction involves drugs or coercion that it becomes rape. Even drugs are problematic. I read an article once that pointed out that a lot of cases where a woman claimed to be drugged for sex, that the symptoms of that drugging was indistinguishable from the symptoms for over indulgence in alcohol. Not that it is OK to get a woman too drunk to resist and then have sex with her, of course. If a celebrity did that, then he is as much a rapist as any other proven case. But it has to be proven 'beyond reasonable doubt'.

[piscator]

[JimC]

I think BG's point is potentially valid, but the big question is to what extent, i.e. what proportion of delayed rape charges against celebrities are real, and what proportions are either down to cynical money grabbing or BG's false memory scenario...

[pErvinalia]

49%, 22%, 29%.

You're welcome.

[Blind groper]

The thing is that the accused is supposed to get the benefit of the doubt and not to be found guilty if there is 'reasonable doubt'. I think it seriously unlikely that false memory syndrome has been a part of determining that reasonable doubt.