Superior Court Judge Derek G. Johnson: “If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen…”

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How vaginas work, according to

How vaginas work, according to Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson.

This makes me so. angry. I’d like to know just what these magical defenses against rape that women are supposed to have are. I’d like to know what these asshats making idiot proclamations like this think actually happens during a rape. Do they think our vaginas are barbed? Equipped with bear traps? Do they shoot missiles, and no one told me?

Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson should be removed from the bench, period. No one this ignorant should be in charge of anything to do with the justice system.

LA Times: Judge who said rape victim should have ‘put up a fight’ is rebuked.

“I’m not a gynecologist, but I can tell you something,” the judge said, according to documents released Thursday. “If someone doesn’t want to have sexual intercourse, the body shuts down. The body will not permit that to happen unless a lot of damage in inflicted, and we heard nothing about that in this case.

“That tells me that the victim in this case, although she wasn’t necessarily willing, she didn’t put up a fight.”

The judge, who has been on the Orange County Superior Court since 2000, also declared the rape “technical,” and not “a real, live criminal case.”

Marci Sischo

After watching her parents murdered by a mugger in a back alley, Marci Sischo grew up vowing to become the world's greatest detec -- wait, that's Batman. Theorizing that one could time travel within her own lifetime, Marci Sischo stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished -- no, no. That's Dr. Sam Beckett. Drat. Marci Sischo grew up in northern Michigan, and moved to Oregon in 2009. Yes! She's the Commuter's webmaster, pursuing a journalism degree at LBCC, and in her dwindling spare time, she's co-authoring an urban fantasy novel.
  • Squatch

    Well….
    *Ahem*.
    Maybe he…Hm. .
    No, I think thats about the dumbest shit ever.

    • http://twitter.com/MarciSischo Marci Sischo (@MarciSischo)

      i just don’t even know what to say about garbage like this anymore. I’m trying to keep my hopes up that it’s a generational thing that will eventually die out.

  • Kaci

    I’ll go ahead and address the unspoken. He might be thinking of lubrication. One does not have to be lubricated to have sex forced upon you. It’s kind of beautiful to think that all sex is consensual, but it’s kind of INSULTING AS HELL to imply that rape victims are all lying, and they must have secretly wanted it. I agree. Opinions that ill-informed are disqualifying for public service, on the bench, or anywhere else.

    • http://twitter.com/MarciSischo Marci Sischo (@MarciSischo)

      I had assumed that the judge’s comments were due to some more ignorant jackassery spewed by Dr. John Willke, the guy behind Todd Akin’s (and other Republicans’) stupid rape statements, but so far as I can tell, he only said stuff about rape-related pregnancy. I’m going to chalk it up to this whole “slut-shaming” attitude entrenched the minds of some old farts, this idea that if a woman gets raped it’s because she was being provocative somehow, or because she actually wanted it, because “good girls don’t get raped.”

      As far as the actual mechanics of a rape – the body doesn’t really know the difference. A woman can and at least sometimes does make lubrication during a rape because the body just reacts. In fact, women have even reported orgasming during a rape. That doesn’t make it any more consensual – that’s just how bodies work.

      It makes me angry that people don’t know these things. This is basic biology. I’m not even particularly science-literate, and I know them.

    • http://twitter.com/MarciSischo Marci Sischo (@MarciSischo)

      Adding – Sorry if that sounds snippy at you, Kaci – I don’t mean that you don’t know this stuff – I’m just annoyed that more people don’t know this stuff. I’m agreeing with you. :)

  • anonymous

    I wanted to vomit when I read this. I was raped at gunpoint when I was 14 by someone well known by some extended friends. He was 18 and just returned from the Army. Afterwards he told everyone that I had seduced him; no one believed that he raped me. I was too frightened to report it. I don’t recall any physical “shredding” as the judge says. I actually just went mentally numb afterwards and started abusing drugs. It took years to pull myself together.
    Derek G. Johnson is clearly too ignorant to preside over such cases. I am so sorry for the defendant who had to sit and listen to his insensitive and idiotic remarks. What a travesty.

    • Steven

      Every case he’s ever ruled on needs to be reviewed

  • Steven

    And he still sitting on the bench making judgments

  • http://tangledstring.wordpress.com marji

    After how hard we (I) fought for Civil and Women’s Rights in my youth, I am beginning to feel like I have entered an alternate dimension where it’s the 1950s again and life is great if you’re a White Male because you can be as racist or sexist as you want and there are no consequences.