Father of three, Michael Sutherland, pens a letter to Brock Turner’s father.
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June 8, 2016
Dear Mr. Turner:
By this time the world is aware of your note in defense of your son, Brock, who raped an unconscious woman on campus at Stanford over a year ago. I will not address your son’s crime, or the levity of the judge’s sentence. I am writing in reply to your note, which I confess was difficult to read.
A bit of introduction of myself, to establish my perspective. I am a 45-year-old father of three—two daughters and a son—and am myself the younger brother of two older sisters. I grew up in a stable home with two very Republican parents—back when that term implied personal accountability—and I went to Dartmouth College. While at college I saw and acted out more than my share of alcohol-fueled libido. And while I at times behaved disgracefully, I never once committed rape or violent assault. There are a few reasons for this, but one certainly was my mother telling me more than once, “I teach your sisters to be careful and avoid dangerous situations. But you, as a boy, might one day be with a girl who’s lost control of herself. In that case, she’ll be depending on you for her safety.” A lesson I never forgot.
So to your letter. I’m ignoring your pointless lament about your son’s lost lifestyle. Actions have consequences. Two things, however, did stand out to me: first, your description of the rape with the now-infamous term “20 minutes of action.” “Action” is a particularly disgusting euphemism, drawing as it does on such traditions as the sailing ship-era term “clearing for action” meaning preparing for battle. The correct term for your son’s act is “assault”, “sexual assault”or “rape”. Anything less is deliberate avoidance. (As an aside it is a flat lie to characterize his rape as “not violent”. He penetrated a woman without her consent. That is violence.) This leads to the second thing: you did not mention the victim. Not once. Do you have any idea how continually and brutally rape accusers are degraded, harassed and dismissed? A quick review of high-profile rape cases over the past decade-plus will acquaint you: Kobe Bryant, Steubenville, Ohio, Baylor University. Is there any way to dismiss a person more contemptuously or completely than how you did, by simply not mentioning her? Have you not tried for even a few seconds to consider the impact of your son’s crime on her, and her life? Considered the effect on her appetite and welcoming smile?
If you continue to refuse to understand, you deserve a lifetime of shame for writing that note. You deserve to be ostracized at work, to be given the cold shoulder by family, and to be sworn off by longtime friends as inhumane.
How could you change this? What could you do to start earning back the trust of people who should no longer trust you?
Educate yourself. Become aware of the consequences of rape—not for the rapist, but for the one who was raped. Try to understand the life-changing trauma—which does not heal like a cut or a broken bone—from so horrible an assault. Such a change doesn’t come easily for someone at least in middle age, and probably older. Empathy, particularly if you’ve never tried to develop it, grows slowly. But it does grow.
When I was in college, there was an acting troupe of women on campus called the “Untamed Shrews.” They gave what they called roadshows all over the state, which could take various forms but were frequently a series of monologues or dialogues, a series of vignettes 5-10 minutes long. As a freshman, barely two weeks on campus, I was brought, somewhat unwillingly, along with my dormitory floor to one of these roadshows. Among other monologues was on by a strikingly beautiful blonde woman, who described spending a language study semester in France with a native family, and being raped on a date by a member of the French national ski team. She described the anger, the shame, the frowning disapproval of the family who assumed she was to blame as a slut, and the breezy incomprehension of the skier that he’d done anything wrong. She described being no longer able to function socially or as a student, and how the assault ruined her semester, her year, and more.
After she finished, I remember thinking, “That’s a sad story.” As the next monologue was going on, I glanced off to the side of the stage and saw that same woman huddled with two others, sobbing uncontrollably. That’s when I realized: “That wasn’t a story. That was her life. It happened. And she’s still living it now.” Perhaps my having two older sisters, and a mother (my father was shier to talk about sex) who made a point of emphasizing that women are inherently vulnerable, made me especially sensitive to testimony like that. I can say it’s the one monologue I remember from the evening, largely because of the effect I saw in the speaker.
I have little doubt there are groups like that in the state where you live. It shouldn’t take terribly long to find one. Better yet, a rape recovery group. I think they might be receptive to having the parent of a rapist attend a few meetings to educate himself. I have no doubt at all that many of the women (and perhaps some men!) would want you to hear their stories. I have far greater doubts about your worth as a man and your courage to go.
How to gain some of the humanity you’ve shown yourself so lacking in?
Attend some women’s advocacy/recovery groups, like I’ve mentioned. Perhaps read some books. Far better yet–start talking about this with women you know. You’ll be surprised to find how many of them have lived through something similar. It was only after we were engaged that my wife described how she was raped by a former boyfriend. If the prospect is scary to you, good. You will be truly educating yourself. You’ll have a greater and more immediate understanding of the people all around you.
Why so weakly toss the burden on your son to be an activist? Why not, after learning about the experiences of women with respect to rape and sexual assault, become an advocate among parents on the issue, about how to avoid the obvious mistakes you made in raising a rapist? And do not deceive yourself: that is what you have done.
Sincerely,
Michael Sutherland
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Photo Credit: Associated Press/File
This post was originally published on DailyKos
These people are so self-absorbed, self-righteous and infected with cognitive dissonance that there is no reasoning nor talking to them. THIS will have to happen to them/theirs in order to ‘feel’ anything. maybe. #DemonsOfAmerica.
@ Bill Here’s an article. I suppose you can refer to it as a he said she said and what she said seems to be the point your trying to push. http://www.burtonmail.co.uk/Derbyshire-woman-groomed-teenage-boy-sex-denied/story-29382269-detail/story.html Of course if you don’t believe the men in the APA study. The estimated million men who were raped by women in the 12 months preceding the 2010 CDC NISBS, the men surveyed under PREA who reported so many rapes by female staff that it comprized 80% or so of staff perpetrated sexual assault, the boys surveyed under PREA who reported being raped in detention by female staff… Read more »
There are two certainties here. First is that this was a heinous crime and the perpetrator should be dealt with accordingly. There is an immense travesty of justice here. Second is that there is no rape culture in this country, and this women is being equally abused by that select group as a tool in their hateful quest against men. Even feminist are out there debunking this nonsense about “rape culture”. American women are the most privileged, protected on this planet…because we men do and always have protected them and this country. This was a choice by a single individual,… Read more »
It’s a little off topic, but here is how ridiculous society has come in their quest to end rape and rape culture. An erection has become evidence of criminal intent.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/man-lycra-with-erection-hunted-10664094
I saw that after reading a story of a high school protesting that female students need to wear bras because women have breasts deal with it. Well, men have penises. The man did nothing inappropriate except have a boner.
Right. It’s off topic when discussing an article about a convicted rapist.
It’s also an article discussing rape culture. I suppose we’re not suppose to discuss how rape culture and of course the over exaggeration of it affects boys and men. It really affects boys and men both ways. Rape culture denies that men van be victims of rape and as Bill seems to want to defend rape culture at the very least mitigates the culpability of women, which of course was not worthy of you mentioning. Rape culture also paints ALL men as potential rapists. That denies men the ability to spend some with family as they’re suspected molesters even when… Read more »
What are you talking about? The sentence WAS lenient! The fact that you’re apparently not appalled by it speaks volumes. The father actually described the rape as “15 minutes of action.” You don’t find that to be offensive? You seem to have a double standard: You say many accusations against men are false while at the same time you say there’s a near epidemic of female-on-male rape. My sister was nearly raped on two separate occasions, the first when she wasn’t even ten years old! (The only reason she wasn’t raped either time was because she had a means to… Read more »
“The sentence WAS lenient!” Already acknowledged many times. A lot of pother sentences are lenient too. Most of them are handed to women when prosecutor feel like charging them at all. Some are a lot more lenient than this if you consider that he has life time registration on the sex offender registry and of course 3 years probation. This is what a woman gets for a violent home invasion and rape. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3084573/Mother-three-accused-breaking-man-s-apartment-raping-slept-pleads-guilty.html Sure, she got 50% more time than he, but her sentence is TYPICAL for a woman. She also got a 50% SHORTER probationary period. I’m nit sure… Read more »
I hope the people you know are doing better and trust they get the help they need. The thing that jumped out at me when you told the story was how quickly they recognized they were raped. I also trust that even the young man, when he contacts the rape crisis hotlink and explains that he was raped by a MAN will receive victims services. He won’t be told that they don’t help male victims or sent to abuser services like other men who have sought help. I trust that their healing as slow as it was could start fairlt… Read more »
And there are no feminists who have more traditional type marriages, no Christians who commit infidelity, no criminals who can be truly remorseful if they didn’t immediately plead guilty and “make amends” for their crimes. As they say, slow your roll. He defended his son in a letter to a judge in an attempt to get a lesser sentence as literally millions of people have done, but of course he’s the one guy in all the world that must condone the crime. Otherwise why would anyone be asking for leniency instead of asking the judge how they could assist the… Read more »