Yes, it’s true, the World is full of Brock Turners

By now, we all know too well the story of Brock Turner’s horrendous escape from rape charges that should have put him behind bars for years. Now with less than a month before his release, we are invited to express our anger once again at a new Brock Turner.

Our new Brock, chillingly all too much mirrors the joke of a conviction handed out by Judge Persky who sentenced the rapist to 20 years to life on probation and two years on a work-release program. Austin James Wilkerson, a former Colorado college student, was convicted of raping an intoxicated woman he had been pretending to care for which occurred on March 15, 2014. Wilkerson had been celebrating St. Patrick’s day, when he told his friends that he would care for a girl who had become too intoxicated from the celebration. In reality, he isolated the young woman and raped her while she was in a half-conscious state. After he completed the act, Wilkerson still had the audacity to respond back to a text from the young women’s friend who had thanked him for caring for her.

In pre-trial examinations, he admitted that there was a lack of reaction and response from the woman during the act, admitting to sexually assaulting her. Through university investigations, it was understood that Wilkerson had been making advances that were not accepted, to which he felt “pissed off” referring to her as a “fucking bitch”. However, unsurprisingly Wilkerson flipped the script in court, telling the prosecution that it was a “fun, sexy, passionate consensual sexual encounter”.

This backtrack was deemed as a serious account of denial. Obviously, like Turner, he did not understand his actions. Wilkerson was kind enough to care for a girl who was too drunk to function, a girl he made advances at that should have been reciprocated in his mind. Wilkerson is your “average nice guy”, caught in a game with a woman“playing too hard to get”. And like your average nice guy, shouldn’t he be rewarded with something? Wilkerson was only taking what he thought he deserved. Right?

Obviously in the eyes of Judge Patrick Butler, it makes zero sense to convict Wilkerson to hard time behind bars. Instead, Wilkerson can be a lesson for those affected by rape. Listen hard: the law is not here for you. This law was created by men to serve the needs of man; the law is gendered “male.” By this, they explain that the law has been designed and written by men for men’s purposes, with little regard for women’s or other’s needs and interests.

Perhaps another way to understand this violence is: “coercive sex without overt physical violence typically is not considered to be rape, even though statutory definitions do not require violence as a necessary requirement of the crime.”

So while you may have been sexually assaulted, if they didn’t hurt you enough, the message has been made clear: it doesn’t matter.