Kids who are never told ‘no’: How a culture of entitlement led to Stanford rape

HE GREW up in a rich suburb where children are born to be overachievers. Here’s how Brock Turner’s entitled life ended in a sexual assault conviction.

Brock Turner’s friends and family threw their support behind him after his conviction for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. But how far did his upbringing contribute to his crime?

IT’S an idyllic neighbourhood of leafy streets, beautiful homes and carefree children, sheltered from the violence and misery of the world.

This is where Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist who continues to make headlines as he denies responsibility for his crime, grew up.

These pleasant surroundings are those of Oakwood, Ohio, but it could be any number of affluent suburbs in the American Midwest, or indeed in Australia.

Kate Geiselman, who has lived in the area for 20 years, wrote in the Washington Post that “communities like this one have a dark side” because of the pressure to succeed, the conflation of achievement with being good and “the tacit understanding that rules don’t necessarily apply”.

For her, 20-year-old swim star Turner is a familiar character: “the ‘nice’, clean-cut, ‘happy-go-lucky’, hyper-achieving kid who’s never been told ‘no’.”

This entitled young man, born to succeed, has seen his life fall apart after a shocking crime in which he sexually assaulted an unconscious young woman behind a dumpster.

Many have wondered how such an angelic seeming young man becomes a rapist. Others say such occurrences are inevitable in our unequal society.

When students from the University of Sydney’s Wesley College published a magazine last month labelling women “b****es” and “h**s”, there were similar questions over how those involved had grown up.

“I went to a co-ed school, and by no means do I want to generalise, but I wonder if a lot of the private Sydney schools are same-sex, and so some of the boys haven’t learnt how to interact with girls,” a female former student at the college told news.com.au.

“They come to a place like Wesley and their systems are so shocked that they are suddenly living with women, that they see them as pieces of meat.”

The 20-year-old’s father said his son had lost his ‘easygoing personality’.

Swim star Brock Turner had a bright future ahead.

Another told news.com.au students at the highly rated Sydney college “think they’re above rules” and “have a disgusting party culture” in which young people are pressured to conform to in order to belong.

“It’s so ingrained in their tradition, and most of them have heard so many stories from their parents about what goes on, that they think it’s their right to act however they want at the expense of everyone else,” she added.

Clinical psychologist Andrew Fuller, a fellow of the University of Melbourne’s psychiatry department who specialises in working with young people, told news.com.au that children from traditionally privileged areas do not necessarily fare better when it comes to wellbeing than those with less advantaged backgrounds.

“There’s clearly a real need to teach social skills,” he said. “That can prevent against deliquency and substance abuse in later life.

“Teaching that people are expendable is a very damaging lesson. We all benefit from being taught to be compassionate and considerate.”

He said schools, parents and grandparents need to start educating children in how to treat others from around year three or four, making sure they are not taught that “people can be manipulated or used as tools for pleasure.”

National Union of Students women’s officer Heidi La Paglia told news.com.au that part of the issue was that “men are socialised in a particular way”.

She said boys and young men are often encouraged to display “behaviours that give them power over women”, particularly at university.

But she warned it was important not to assume that rapists tend to come from a particular type of white, middle-class, privileged background because they have all kinds of backgrounds.

“There isn’t a particular type of rapist,” she said. “Education around respectful actions and how to treat women should be at the very beginning.”

Turner’s father demonstrated an alarming lack of awareness when he defended his son by saying his life will be “deeply altered” by the court’s verdict.

“He will never be his happy go lucky self with that easy going personality and welcoming smile,” he wrote in a statement arguing his son should not go to jail.

“His every waking minute is consumed with worry, anxiety, fear and depression. Now he barely consumes any food and eats only to exist. These verdicts have broken and shattered him and our family in so many ways. His life will never be the one that he dreamt about and worked so hard to achieve. That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.”

Like his father, Turner also blamed his behaviour on alcohol and sexual promiscuity, rather than taking responsibility for his terrible crime.

Those vital conversations about consent may never take place in his circle.

“Alcohol is a factor that exacerbates the violence ... women often have stories of being taken advantage of and being less able to consent. But alcohol is not the underlying cause,” Ms La Paglia said.

She says young men like Turner needed to be taught about consent and acceptable behaviour from primary school.

“We know that at every age, violence against women is a problem.”