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From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: The Dotson Case
Message-ID: <976@ulysses.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 30-May-85 17:45:54 EDT
Article-I.D.: ulysses.976
Posted: Thu May 30 17:45:54 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 31-May-85 06:09:07 EDT
References: <439@rtech.UUCP> <2220@decwrl.UUCP> <6078@umcp-cs.UUCP> <341@moncol.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
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> Let's say Dotson really did rape her. (No flames please, this is an >
academic discussion.) Why then would his victim then recant her
testimony > and get him released?

Perhaps she (now) believes that a woman is at fault for getting raped.
I'm quite serious; that mentality is not confined to men.  Based on the
physical evidence in the case (the semen stains, the pubic hairs,
etc.), I'm inclined to think she did have intercourse with *someone*
other than her boyfriend that night -- with whom, and under what
circumstances (consensual sex, forcible rape, what Germaine Greer calls
"petty rape") remain unclear.

Let me give a possible scenario.  Suppose she met Dotson and they went
out on a date.  At some point, she said "no" to his advances, whereupon
he raped her ("of course she didn't really mean it...").  She quite
properly complained to the police, date rape being the evil that it
is.  But suppose that over the intervening years, she has convinced
herself that *she* was at fault for leading him on?

I have a few other ideas as well, but they're really irrelevant to the
larger issue of rape and society.  This case is unique and quite
difficult; the adage that hard cases make bad law quite definitely
applies.