Why Are We Not Calling the Danny Brown Oral-Sex Assault ‘Rape’?

[DonViejo]

BLAMING THE VICTIM

Why Are We Not Calling the Danny Brown Oral-Sex Assault ‘Rape’?

9 HOURS AGO - BY AMANDA MARCOTTE

The gender roles may have been reversed, but the rapper’s oral sex sneak attack shares a lot in common with classic sexual assaults, says Amanda Marcotte.

The scene played out like so many sexual assaults do. It’s a party atmosphere. The assailant takes advantage of the victim’s lowered guard and the general air of debauchery to force sexual contact on a nonconsenting person. After the attack, the apologists run in, denying that what happened counts as sexual assault and implying that the victim secretly wanted it. The victim’s erratic reactions are dissected endlessly to distract from the obvious: that sexual contact was forced on the victim against his will.

We’re talking, of course, about Rapper Danny Brown, who was performing at a show when a female fan got on stage and sprung oral sex on him. He reportedly backed away quickly. Despite the fact that the victim in this case is male and his alleged assailant female, the story demonstrates how cultural norms, peer pressure, sexual shame, and gender roles all intersect to make it easy for sexual assailants to operate without much consequence. Kitty Pryde, who is currently touring with Brown, wrote an excellent piece for Vice expressing frustration at how most people don’t seem to see what happened as an assault:

What is Danny supposed to do? The girl was at mouth-to-dick level already and to push her away, he would've had to either push her face or kick her, and even the most gentle of either motion would immediately be labeled “abuse” by anyone watching. Guys pushing girls is not a good look when people are taking photos. So what was Danny supposed to do, other than back away, which he did?

Pryde is spot on with her description of how a sexual assailant uses social pressures to subdue a victim. However, she makes one major mistake earlier in the article by suggesting that such a thing wouldn’t have happened to a woman because there’s a widespread understanding that nonconsensual sexual contact foisted on women is wrong. I wish she were right about that, but sadly, as the recent cases in Steubenville, Halifax, and Cleveland, Texas (amongst thousands upon thousands of others) show, plenty of men force sexual contact on women, often in full view of others, only to have a sea of supporters deny that it was rape.

full article
http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2013/05/09/why-are-we-not-calling-the-danny-brown-oral-sex-assault-rape.html

[leftynyc]

1. Is he pressing charges?

Maybe that's why.

[Nye Bevan]

4. Victims of sexual assault frequently decline to press charges.

The stress and trauma of reliving the incident and being interrogated about it is frequently a reason for this.

[leftynyc]

8. I understand that

But the cops wont charge her without his statement saying he was raped.

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. Poor Danny Brown. I hope he's in therapy now.

[eissa]

3. If he felt assaulted

he would say so. She gave him a blow job, he willingly accepted it. That sounds like two consenting adults to me. As someone else pointed out in a thread about this a while back, if it were a man who pulled down Brown's pants and tried to put his mouth on him, I'm sure Brown would have found a way to stop that.

[MattBaggins]

13. Where do you come up with that he willingly accepted it?

[geek tragedy]

16. He's said in an interview 'it was cool that that type

of shit happened.'

Edited to add:

I don't think that implies acceptance of a sex act, but he's given no indication that he considered what happened to be any kind of violation.

Not up to us to tell him what he did or didn't want or experience.

[eissa]

18. Where is it indicated that he didn't?

When Kendrick Lamar tweeted him asking if it was true that he got a blow job on stage, Brown tweeted back "and didn't miss one bar bruh." He doesn't sound too traumatized. If/when he expresses any displeasure whatsoever over the occurrence, I will happily join him in seeking this woman's arrest. Until then, if two consenting adults engage in a sexual act, however vulgar it may appear, then that's what it is.

[CBGLuthier]

5. Just read the first three replies and you have your answer

Society does not think that women can sexually abuse men.

If it happens it is laughed off. Every fucking time.

[geek tragedy]

12. It is certainly possible, and it does happen.

That doesn't mean, though, that it happened in this instance.

[eissa]

14. Not true at all, and not what anyone said

He did not feel he was assaulted. He has not issued a single complaint of any kind, in fact quite the opposite (a tweet he sent out -- and has since deleted -- indicated he enjoyed it.) As vulgar as the whole incident might be, we can't force him to say he was assaulted if he didn't think he was.

[hrmjustin]

6. She should have been arrested!

[Rex]

7. She sprung oral sex on him?

So he was forced to have oral sex with her? He had no choice in the matter and could do nothing about it?

[DonViejo]

30. Did you bother reading the article? All your questions...

(that you posted) are answered therein.

[geek tragedy]

9. What exactly happened?

There are conflicting reports about how much sexual contact he was engaging in with female fans during the concert, his tweet afterwards, etc.

And just how much oral sex could go on if he 'quickly backed away?'

Men have very good reflexes when it comes to unwelcome intrusions into the safety zone around that area.

If he considers it to have been sexual assault, he has not indicated so.

[redqueen]

10. People usually don't label things as rape before the victim does.

The one exception being when the victim is underage.

I agree with the sentiment, this incident could very well be rape and I hope he speaks out one way or the other.

However it seems Amanda hasn't shaken off her Good Men Project leanings. This isn't the first time she's gone a little, er, overboard.

Someone else wrote a much better piece about this incident... can't remember where I saw it.

[LiberalLoner]

11. +1

[geek tragedy]

15. This is apparently an interview he did.

http://www.nuvo.net/MusicBlog/archives/2013/05/03/danny-brown-talks-minneapolis-onstage-incident

NUVO: I've been reading all kinds of [pieces] about whatever happened in Minneapolis. ... I wondered if you had read anything [being written] and how much you think is right, if any.

Brown: I just don't like when people - with the whole thing, I don't like the way people are, like, taking the tabloid-y approach to it. ... I mean, it's what happened. The biggest thing with me is that I don't like when people try and throw the age thing. You know what I'm saying? It was a fuckin' - I don't do all-ages shows for one thing. The girl was fuckin' 24 years old. I talked to her after the show was over with. You know what I'm saying? I don't like that they keep trying to throw in there that he maybe "did" an underage girl. That's not true, at all. And that's the only thing that really upset me about it.

NUVO: (I hem and haw while thinking about my next question.)

Brown: Don't get me wrong, I'm just keepin' it [honest] with you. I'm not like, proud of that shit that happened. I'm not running around, feeling like the man or some shit. I'm not happy. You know what I'm saying? I'm not happy that that shit happened. It happened - it was cool. Don't get me wrong. It was cool that that type of shit happened. I don't, like - if this was the '80s or something and we could just hear word of mouth, than that would be cool. But we live in a world where videos and pictures and everybody wants to do a fuckin' article trying to track down the girl, talking to the wrong girl, you know what I'm saying? That shit is not cool.

Obviously, victims do go into denial, but . . .

[redqueen]

20. I still won't label it for him.

I tried to 'play off' being roofied and raped when I was in my 20's. I felt ashamed of being stupid - I didn't know about roofies, thought I just drank too much and paid the price, blamed myself, so out of shame I pretended I wanted it and, like he says here, 'it was cool'.

There are reasons he might be trying to play this off. I won't label it for him. It wasn't my experience.

The conflict in this one comment makes me uneasy at best about assuming everything is 'cool'.

I'm not happy. You know what I'm saying? I'm not happy that that shit happened. It happened - it was cool

[geek tragedy]

22. I took that to mean he's not trying to brag about it.

I'm not like, proud of that shit that happened. I'm not running around, feeling like the man or some shit. I'm not happy. You know what I'm saying? I'm not happy that that shit happened. It happened - it was cool. Don't get me wrong. It was cool that that type of shit happened.

He seems bothered by the publicity/attention the incident has gotten.

[ismnotwasm]

23. Exactly

I think his friend Kitty Pryde (i posted from her blog below). is a more honest about it; being male in the rap hyper-masculine culture, I think he's limited by what his responses are gong to be. He wasn't physically hurt, he probably got supportive props 'Yo dude tha girl was all up on the stage ready to do you man', as a male he's supposed to shrug off or even enjoy that kind of thing. NO MATTER how he actually felt.

Rape culture in action yet again.

[redqueen]

25. Yep, exactly.

Thanks for posting it here.

I like Kitty Pryde

[Wait Wut]

28. I think this explains some of the confusion:

"...But we live in a world where videos and pictures and everybody wants to do a fuckin' article trying to track down the girl, talking to the wrong girl, you know what I'm saying? That shit is not cool."

I get the impression that he's actually trying to protect the woman and any woman that might be misidentified. Not a fan of his, but I gotta say, this snippet of his interview was impressive. He seems to want the whole experience to just go away and everyone left alone.

Whether or not he 'enjoyed' it doesn't make it less of an assault. I remember years ago a story about a teenage boy that was raped by an older woman and I believe she became pregnant. Anyway, the majority of comments stated that it 'isn't rape if the guy gets off.' It was disgusting and had to have been devastating to the young man.

[eissa]

29. That was a teenage boy

and definitely considered rape. The "getting off" part is just disgusting, and similar to those recent comments by Akins and his ilk about women not being able to get pregnant if raped (because "the juices" wouldn't flow :banghead

Sexual assault on men does occur and should be taken as seriously as any rape. However, I worry when we categorize assaults such as this as rape if the victim in this case does not feel he was assaulted.

[Wait Wut]

33. I agree, somewhat.

But, there are plenty of women out there that still blame themselves for 'unsolicited sexual encounters'. I think it could be even more confusing to a man with that whole 'it's not rape if I got off' crap.

It's up to him, though. I would suggest that woman get some counseling.

[ismnotwasm]

17. Here's an article by a friend of his

I usually don't cross-post from HoF, but while it doesn't answer the question, it points out exactly how a man could be sexually assaulted and feel helpless enough in front of a crowd. The fear of assault charges if he pushed her away, the fact that he is black and she was white only intensified the possibility.

(WARNING this contains offensive language)

I won’t go into detail about the actual events because I was pretty drunk and I don’t want to tell the wrong story. I will say that it happened so quickly that nobody I talked to after the show even knew anything had happened (there was only one photo and no video—how rare is that). I will also say that whoever wrote on Reddit that Danny was “walking around the stage getting girls to grab his dick” is 100% false, and to blame someone for their own molestation is a shitty thing to do. Anybody who is exaggerating this tale to climax is also a lying fool, and to call it a blow job is even going a bit far because it was probably the fastest thing I’ve ever seen. "The Thing" was not a thing that Danny facilitated—it was an actual sexual assault, and somehow nobody gives a fuck about that but me.

It's obvious that the reason nobody cares is because a girl did it to a boy. I said this on my blog, but I’ll say it again here—I had my pants ripped off onstage, and didn’t know what to do either because being naked in front of 1000 people is incredibly scary and there’s not much quick decision-making happening in your brain during that sort of thing. Now I’m prepared to kick a motherfucker in the teeth if he touches me at all, and I equip myself with giant boots for that reason. What is Danny supposed to do? The girl was at mouth-to-dick level already and to push her away, he would've had to either pushed her face or kicked her, and even the most gentle of either motion would
immediately be labeled “abuse” by anyone watching. Guys pushing girls is not a good look when people are taking photos. So what was Danny supposed to do, other than back away, which he did? And if he had figured out a way to gently push the girl off him immediately without looking like he was smacking her in the face, he’s faced with attacks on his masculinity by every douchebro in the building. Yo dude, you don’t want your dick sucked, bro? Are you gay? Haha you’re gay you don’t want girls to suck your dick haha gay dude bro man swag! And that’s a rapper’s literal nightmare.

http://noisey.vice.com/blog/my-thoughts-on-this-whole-danny-brown-oral-sex-thing

[Blue_Tires]

19. That had to be a staged stunt or something...

aren't there stage security guards who quickly nab anyone dumb enough to get on stage? I'm guessing if it was a man instead of a hot girl climbing up there, he would have gotten apprehended before he even got both feet on stage...

[obnoxiousdrunk]

21. Danny is going to

be scarred for life.

[Enrique]

24. did anyone call the police?

i imagine the woman would have been arrested if someone had called the cops.

[cbdo2007]

26. It is up to the victim to label it assault or rape....

not a bunch of random interweb surfers.

He says it is assault, then it is assault. He says it is rape, then it is rape.

[Warpy]

27. I agree it was a sexual assault

and does fall within the guidelines of "attempted rape."

However, he'd have to press charges. He probably doesn't want that kind of publicity and feels (rightly or wrongly) that she'll never do it again once she sobers up.

Let's hope not, let's hope he never regrets not pressing charges.

[LittleBlue]

31. Part of it may be that he kept singing while being assaulted

That's what I read in an article, people asking why he kept singing. You wouldn't expect that sort of reaction to rape.

If he didn't mind it, then no crime I guess. Or at least no charges.

[Ilsa]

32. Okay: Brown was sexually assaulted.

He should file criminal charges.

If I was his wife, I would insist that he file charges.