What’s the difference between sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment and rape?

Disgraced Freeholder John Curley was Censured and Reprimanded for sexual harassment.

By Sarah L. Cook, Professor & Associate Dean, Georgia State University, Lilia M. Cortina, Professor of Psychology, Women’s Studies, and Management & Organizations, University of Michigan, and Mary P. Koss, Regents’ Professor of Public Health, University of Arizona. The terms “sexual abuse,” “sexual assault,” “sexual harassment” – and even “rape” – crop up daily in the… Read the rest of this entry »

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Report: Former Marlboro Mayor pleads guilty to rape charges in Delaware

Matthew V. Scannapieco

Former Marlboro Mayor Matthew V. Scannapieco admitted to Delaware authorities that he had an ongoing sexual relationship with an underage female relative between 2006 and 2008, according to a report on app.com.

Scannapieco was free, pending sentencing on federal corruption and tax evasion charges, when he had sexual contact 50-60 times with the girl, according to the timeline in the app report. He was cooperating with federal authorities on other corruption cases from 2005 when he pleaded guilty to accepting $245,000 in bribes for planning board approvals in Marlboro where he served as mayor from 1992 through 2003.  He was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison in 2008 and was released in 2010.

The former mayor, 71, is now likely to spend the rest of his life in Delaware State Prison.  He faces 2 to 25 years on charges of continuous sexual contact, 15 years to life for first degree rape and  up to three years for unlawful sexual contact.  He is in custody in Delaware on $238,000 bail and will be sentenced on September 4.

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The bullshit of the abortion debate

Congressman Todd Akin’s asinine comments about “legitimate rape,” pregnancy and abortion have knocked medicare and the economy off center stage in the political debate, at least temporarily.

Akin has apologized.  Yet his comments are unforgivable because he is clueless to the hurt and damage he has caused and continues to cause.  He is clueless to how hurtful his comments are to women, particularly rape survivors.   His apology is empty because he doesn’t realize what he did.

Akin is clueless to the political damage he is causing as evidenced by the fact that he refused to resign his candidacy for U.S. Senate.  He thinks he can win.  He says his campaign is not about him, but about his message, as if he is a messiah with a unique message that no one else can deliver.  Akin is a candidate for a straight jacket and the U.S. Senate.

Republicans are losing women over the Akin gaffe because 1) they failed to get him out of the Missouri U.S. Senate race and 2) their response is too male. Empathy is missing.  The Republican response, which failed, is strategic and politically expedient.  The strategy is sound, but empathy is missing and women feel that.

Much of the empathy coming from the left is false.  It is strategic.  But at least they are trying. Thus the gender gap will expand until Republican males get empathy for women, or at least fake it as well as Democratic males do.

The sin of it all is that on a political level the abortion debate is bullshit.

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