LETTER: Ashamed Male

Writing as a male ashamed to share a gender with the likes of Jason Seiden and Brandon Fogel, I feel obliged to dismantle their "case" against "The Girl Who Cried Rape" (DP 2/14/92). The incoherence and special pleading of their argument makes its dismantling a rather simple matter. Seiden and Fogel, as "sexually active males . . . are scared shitless" at the prospect of spurious charges of rape being leveled against them. They find such a prospect even more frightening than the risk of STDs (some special immunity of theirs?), pregnancy (easy for them to say), or AIDS (death before dishonor, I guess). Go figure how they've weighed the odds and consequences of these various possible outcomes. Evidently Seiden and Fogel feel up to the task of taking (we hope) suitable precautions against nasty diseases and unwanted family/legal responsibilities. Blessedly so: one shudders at the prospect of Skippy and Bat as spouses or dads. The idea, however, of taking reasonable precautions -- sensitivity, communication, respect, to mention a few -- to curb their natural propensities to hormonal hyperdrive and sexual berserking seems to have escaped them. Young (and clever) freshfellows that they are, Seiden and Fogel can plainly see that social "circumstances" (such as trial venue, race, class, "appearance") give the lie to our criminal justice system's vaunted impartiality. They've got the picture ass-backwards, though. Women who look "inexperienced" or "innocent" can get men who look "violent" or "criminal" into trouble, they fret, pointing to Mike Tyson's raw deal. Somehow, strangely enough, Skippy and Bat can't see that men who are rich, powerful, and well-respected friends of the status quo are more likely beneficiaries of special justice than are anonymous women fighting against their violation. William Kennedy Smith, Clarence Thomas and Mike Tyson had everything to lose and nothing to gain from an honest investigation of their conduct. Their accusers had little to gain and much to lose from making their charges public. The dimension of race complicates but does not alter the picture in the case of Thomas or Tyson. Sadly, though, in the topsy-turvy world of Skippy and Bat, victims are assailants and powerful men are helpless. MARK HAMEL Graduate Student School of Arts and Sciences