Evelina Giobbe

[fierceawakening]

I've known vaguely that there was a scandal wherein Evelina Giobbe, a luminary of the anti-prostitution movement, allegedly sexually assaulted one of the women she supposedly helped to rescue from prostitution. (Does anyone know whether she was found guilty?) I'd seen tiny snippets of the court documents, such as this:

Kelly Holsopple, Plaintiff, vs

Comments

[debi_crow]

Wow - this is a great post. You make some really good points, and I agree 100% with you on all of them. Brilliant stuff - I'm off to look up all the links now...xx

[fierceawakening]

Thank you very much, Debi. :)

[fierceawakening]

Was reading something on hypocrisy yesterday, about how people with high ideals are hypocrites by definition, because we're trying to live more ethical lives than we have so far managed to. I can buy that that applies to environmentalists who occasionally forget their reusable takeout containers and have to go plastic for a day. But it's quite a different matter when it's people who try so hard to reject forms of sexuality that they associate with degradation and then end up sexually assaulting and degrading someone.

YES.

[fierceawakening]

As far as not hearing much about it goes, though, that I can kind of understand, as it did happen eleven years ago. I happened to find out about it because someone mentioned it in some flamewar, and had tried since then to learn more about it or find out more about what became of WHISPER, without very much success. Today I saw that Jill over at Bound Not Gagged had posted about it, and decided to post this.

But it's Jill that really needs thanking, I think, for coming forward with it and having the guts to say "Hey, I knew the woman Giobbe did this to. She was my friend."

[kawakiisakazuki]

I have a theory that's not really developed in depth yet, but one of its factors is that people seem to be drawn particularly strongly to radicalism *against* something or other. I speculate that it has to do in part with how making something apart from yourself Wrong implies that you are to some extent Right and hence "better". Whereas coming out in favor of something in a positive fashion requires more courage, because you open *yourself* up to being made Wrong... Anyway, that's why I think "sex-positiveness" is less likely to attract those who enjoy wallowing in blaming and hating and negativity, because it's much less a crusade against something or other.

If the goal behind the radicality is to make "them" Wrong and by extension "us" Right, if we derive a sense of superiority from being in the Right camp, then it is to be expected that we absolutely won't want to know about one of "us" doing Wrong...

Giobbe agreed to a settlement

[anonymous]

To my knowledge Giobbe opted to settle this rather than continue to maintain her innocence. Given my knowledge of the situation and study of the court transcripts, along with testimony of the victim, Holsopple, Giobbe is totally guilty.

Evelina Giobbe

[anonymous]

Evelina is currently the Executive Director of United Way in Steele County and continues to bully, harass, and intimidate others. Yet United Way chooses to do nothing about it.