Leonard Pitts wrote a very sad column about how, all around the world, Lara Logan, the reporter who was sexually abused in Egypt, is being criticized on Blogs...conservative and liberal ones: Link He makes a good point:

quote:

Yet this sort of thing, this treating of other people's traumas as if they were abstractions unworthy of reverence, is common now in the public forum. As in the vitriol that attended the deaths of Tony Snow, Robert Novak and Sen. Edward Kennedy. The great irony of the Internet era, the era that brought the world together, is that in some ways, we live at a greater remove from one another, from simple decency, and from our own humanity, than ever before.

It's interesting. Just when we thought we were bringing people together with the Internet, we really seem to be allowing people to isolate themselves and post whatever they want...no matter how untrue, indecent, rude, or even, in some cases, libelous.

[addendum: As I read this article, my daughter and I had a conversation about the definition of "sexual assault." I always thought it meant "rape," but she says no; it has a very broad meaning. Is that true?]

There was a quite lightweight discussion of internet bullying on daytime TV yesterday (how low I've sunk, watching daytime TV )

The discussion of it is trivial but the topic isn't. It's a phenomenon of our time and I'm not sure what to do about it. My view is that the immediacy of the internet has bypassed the common sense, cooling down filters on our anger response.

If a celebrity on TV says something that angers me I can now be on line and commenting practically before he's finished speaking. In the past I would have needed to find pen and paper, sit down and compose a letter, go to the post office for stamps and then send the letter. By that time I might have cooled down enough to realise that a string of swear words and a death threat is not a valid response to someone who says Alice In Wonderland is a kids book.

I am guilty of it. If you have read my blog in the last two days you'll have seen my post about the moron who hit me in the face with an egg thrown from a fast moving car as I was on my way home late on Thursday night.

As it reads now, it includes the comment

quote:

just hope that before the day comes that you wrap your car around a lamp post while trying to hit someone with an egg, you manage to grow up and grow a brain.

But I posted it only a couple of minutes after it happened and if you had read it in the first twelve hours afterwards it read

quote:

I hope that you either grow a brain or wrap your car round a lamp post and improve the average IQ of the human race.

I knew as I was typing that it was far too harsh and I changed it next morning but as I was typing the original there was no filter operating on my anger.

I think it's this instant stimulus-response cycle that causes the heat and anger we see so much on the internet, and it's socially rather concerning that it may well spread into real life interactions. Once the filters are bypassed it may not be possible to put them back into place.

And on point number two...

Sexual abuse includes a whole lot of stuff besides rape. Any kind of unwanted, unsolicited sexual contact is sexual abuse including touching people inappropriately, exposing yourself in the park and even making unwanted lewd comments. In fact anything that is a) sexual and b) abusive.

Kalleh was asking about the term "sexual assault", not "sexual abuse". The difference between the definitions of "sexual assault" and "rape" will depend on the legal jurisdiction in which you live. Here in the UK the terms are defined by the Sexual Offences Act 2003:

Rape: A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a) he intentionally penetrates the vagina, anus or mouth of another person (B) with his penis,
(b) B does not consent to the penetration, and
(c) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

Sexual assault: A person (A) commits an offence if—
(a) he intentionally touches another person (B),
(b) the touching is sexual,
(c) B does not consent to the touching, and
(d) A does not reasonably believe that B consents.

Still seems to be pretty much spot on with my definitions though.

I would have thought that only the first of your three examples came under the legal definition.

I see a big difference between sexual abuse and assault. I agree with your definition of abuse, Bob, but I see assault as much more violent. I would define it as "rape." But then I am more literal than the rest of the world. If you recall, I agreed with Bill Clinton that "having sex with that woman" means having sexual intercourse. I still think that; the world hasn't convinced me otherwise.

As far as the social media, we are developing guidelines on it as more and more nurses are posting about their patients (no intent to harm, generally; just wanting to communicate) and getting into trouble.

To your point, Bob, part of the problem is that people can do it so quickly that they don't have time to calm down and think. Not sure what can be done about that.

Any kind of sexual abuse that involves actual physical contact probably constitutes an assault. Seems to from Guy's researched definition.

Assault does, as he says, have a legal definition, which probably varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.