BUCKSPORT, Maine — A sexual assault survivor confronted Graham Platner over a controversial Reddit post in which he asserted that rape victims need to “take some responsibility for themselves.”
The woman broke down as she asked the Democratic Senate candidate whether he would show “true remorse” for the comment rather than offer “shallow words.”
“The day that Reddit post dropped, my heart sank,” the woman said during a Saturday afternoon town hall Platner held in the Midcoast town of Bucksport. “Your comments on sexual assault victims cut deep. I am a survivor. My story is remarkably similar to the one you outlined in that comment. I never shared my story. I never reported it, and I didn’t because I knew I’d be defending myself against that mentality.”
The woman, who did not give her name and said she was sharing her story for the first time in 20 years, was referring to a 2013 post from Platner on a Reddit thread about underwear designed to prevent sexual assault.
In that post, Platner wrote that rape victims should “act like an adult for f-s sake” and “take some responsibility for themselves and not get so f-ed up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to.” He added, “Rape is a real thing, if you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you’d think you might not get blacked out f-ed up around people you aren’t comfortable with.”
Addressing Platner at the town hall, the survivor said she had “consumed every interview” he had given since the remarks surfaced last month, hoping the Democrat would show “true remorse.”
“I’m asking right now: Can you look me in the face as a survivor and offer me more than shallow words?” she asked.
In response, Platner apologized and explained that he wrote the Reddit post when he “had come out of the infantry” and held “a frankly myopic worldview on this issue.” He was nearly 30 years old at the time.
“Sexual assault is not a matter of decisions people make,” Platner told the woman. “It is never the responsibility of the person imposed upon. It is always the abuser. It is always the person with power who is responsible. I do not believe now, and have not for a long time, that it’s the responsibility of people, of those who get assaulted, but I had to learn that.”
Platner’s political future appears to hinge on how voters react to his answers like this one.
The Democrat has faced criticism over several social media posts, including the sexual assault comment, that also denigrated police as “bastards,” labeled rural white Mainers “racist,” and described himself as a “communist.”
A recent poll from the liberal group EMILY’s List found that Platner trails incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins by 19 points when voters are shown “additional information, including quotes in his own words from his online posts.”
During his Bucksport town hall, Platner, whose campaign did not respond to requests for further comment, broadly referred to those posts as “jokes” and admitted he had “no excuse” for them.
“I don’t think of myself as a fully formed human being,” he said. “If anybody thinks they are, we should probably not trust them.”
https://freebeacon.com/democrats/graham-platner-confronted-by-sexual-assault-survivor-over-reddit-posts-blaming-victims-for-their-rapes/
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