Tsinghua Professor: Raping a Hostess is Less Harmful
by Peter Barefoot on Wednesday, July 17, 2013
by Peter Barefoot on Wednesday, July 17, 2013
From QQ:
Tsinghua Professor: Raping Hostesses is Less Harmful than Raping Women of Good Households
[...]
July 10, the new attorneys of Li X, who has been charged by prosecutors for suspicion of rape, made a statement on their blog claiming that the press has the obligation to protect minors and old artists. Moreover, the two new lawyers had previously communicated to the press that they were going to plead not guilty for Li X. All of a sudden, this event has once again incited the fermentation of public opinion.
[...]
On [July] 16, a certain Yi Yanyou, whose verified weibo account says he’s the head of the Law School Evidence Act Center of Tsinghua University, defended Li Tianyi’s attorneys on his microblog arguing that raping a hostess [women hired by bars and clubs to fill up the venue, dance on the dance floor, drink with customers but rarely anything more] is less harmful than raping a woman from a good family. As soon as he said this, it incited heated netizen discussion. Immediately, in response to questions and criticism from netizens, Yi Yanyou clarified on his microblog that the last sentence should be revised as follows: Raping a woman from a good household is more harmful than raping prostitutes and hostesses who drink, dance, and sleep with customers.
Tsinghua professor Yi Yuanyou.
The following is the original microblog post [since deleted]:
@易延友: In defense of Li Tianyi’s defense attorneys: 1. To plead innocent is his right. To quote the Haidian district prosecutor: The sky isn’t going to fall down if we let someone plead not guilty. 2. Minors enjoy special protections, there’s nothing inappropriate about his attorneys issuing statements asking people to respect the law. 3. Pointing out that the victim is a hostess doesn’t mean that hostesses can be raped but there’s a greater possibility that a hostess would consent to sexual behavior. Moreover, even if it is rape, raping hostesses is less harmful than raping women of good households.
Heated weibo discussion:
@宦卿世界: As a “man of the law”, this Mr. Yi of the Tsinghua University Law School is clearly defending Li Shuangjiang. The defense attorneys can plead innocent. This case can only be discussed on whether the punishment fits the crime, because there are already regulations in the law concerning juveniles committing crimes. To argue a defense that hostesses are more likely to agree to sex just makes him a legal illiterate. That’s because the law only cares about evidence, not “possibilities”. “Possibilities” are “groundless”, they are not evidence.
@FTD-TT: Hehe, may I ask by what standard is the degree of harm measured?? Rape is rape, the offense is the same as long as it is against a woman’s will. It has nothing to do with her occupation. A character like you can be a doctoral supervisor? Can you even teach your students well?
@一十一为王: It’s over, completely over. How has China’s education been lowered to the level of animals, that their humanity is even worse than that of animals’.
@包炬强: Chairman of Law School Evidence Act Center of Tsinghua University, are people graded and labeled in your mind? How can you say something so discriminatory? Quote Director Yang Heping: A complete legal illiterate, stupid, ignorant. A character like this can make his way into Tsinghua and become aprofessor? What happened to this country?!
@热情洋溢的老头: You are too lacking in basic moral sense!
