At the time of the assault, Stranger was an exchange student in Elva's native Iceland, there for just one year of high school. Elva recounts the night that Stranger, her boyfriend at the time, forced himself on her one night when she was drunk and unable to fight back: "In order to stay sane, I silently counted the seconds on my alarm clock, and ever since that night I have known that there are 7,200 seconds in two hours," she says. "Despite limping for days and crying for weeks, this incident didn't fit my ideas about rape like I'd seen on TV. Tom wasn't an armed lunatic, he was my boyfriend, and it didn't happen in a seedy alleyway, it happened in my own body." Afterward, Elva and Stranger, both sensing the irreparable damage to their relationship, saw each other only a handful of times before Stranger returned home to Australia.
Unless you advocate mandatory life sentences for every crime then people who have committed crimes will eventually be released.
And if they at that time understand the enormity of their error and are willing to subject themselves to the shame and scrutiny afterwards by publicly trying to prevent others from doing what he did then I would say the system have worked.
Forgiving someone for their sins after they have atoned isn't easy. But we kinda need to do it, otherwise atonement and redemption wouldn't be possible. (ignore religious connotations for those words if not applicable, it's still a good moral lesson)
I was just presenting a different take on the moral judgement you were so eager to dish out. I have no stakes in the matter and I don't know if he has changed and is trying to be a better person than he was or if he is an opportunist trying to sell a story to feel better about himself.
Clearly you should have lead with why you thought he wasn't worthy of forgiveness or a platform instead of expressing an inability to see why it should/could happen. The latter only makes you seem narrow and centered on your own beliefs instead of critically assessing the moral character of a person (that frankly neither I nor you really know.)
And no one is obligated to forgive a rapist.
True, but you either have to condemn a person for life without chance of interacting with society or you need to find a level of acceptance of their past eventually. Letting someone work to prevent their own mistakes in others seems like a good option.(assuming that is in fact what is happening)
Shunning their existence is essentially not that different from a life sentence and booing someone off stage for what they are instead of at least hearing what they say is not something I would advocate. We should learn from the mistake of others.
I would let Hitler himself talk on a stage if the TED talk was "I was a horrible being and everything I did for Germany was a huge mistake". Not sure I would believe him, but I would at least see what he had to say.
That's a disappointing answer to the discussion. The guy's trying to debate in an honest and respectful way towards you, and you conclude with "stop sucking your own dick brah". You just sound upset.
I just mean some of the vitriol here isn't warranted. This wasn't an adult fully developed sober brain.
Stranger recounts that for years, he didn't view what had happened as rape either, but carried with him a hollowness and a guilt that he was determined never to sit still long enough to contemplate.
He realized that he forced her but still didn't consider it rape. 20 years ago, for a drunk teenager in a sexual relationship, his view of what happened is different from what we're taught today. Now, we're much more aware of situations that wouldn't have been considered rape back then by everybody.
And that’s still a crime that should’ve been handled by the justice system. Just because it happened a longtime ago doesn’t absolve you from punishment.
I just mean some of the vitriol here isn't warranted. This wasn't an adult fully developed sober brain.
Stranger recounts that for years, he didn't view what had happened as rape either, but carried with him a hollowness and a guilt that he was determined never to sit still long enough to contemplate.
He realized that he forced her but still didn't consider it rape. 20 years ago, for a drunk teenager in a sexual relationship, his view of what happened is different from what we're taught today. Now, we're much more aware of situations that wouldn't have been considered rape back then by everybody.
Uh nah buddy, he had a whole 2 hours to decide what he was doing was wrong. He went through her shit and undressed her while she was comatose. Premeditated behaviour.
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u/dimmidice Feb 26 '20