Fifield, 41, is the second woman to allege this week that Platner engaged in nonconsensual sexual conduct. Jenny Racicot, 41, who said she previously dated Platner, told The Post and other outlets on Monday that he sexually assaulted her in late 2021, leading a growing number of allies to drop their endorsements and call on him to withdraw from the race for a Maine seat in the U.S. Senate. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), his most influential and prominent supporter, said he spoke with Platner on Tuesday and urged him to withdraw from his campaign to unseat Susan Collins, the incumbent Republican.
Platner, 41, a Marine Corps veteran and oyster farmer, also denied Racicot’s allegation but said on Monday that he was “mindful of the political reality” that the reporting will “inflict” on his campaign and was “taking the time to reflect on the best path forward.”
Fifield initially told The Post about the alleged condom removal during a June 20 interview that was off the record. She said she decided to speak publicly about it Tuesday in part because, she said, she wanted to show that Racicot was not alone in experiencing issues with Platner involving sexual consent.
Fifield, who spent 7 years working for the Heritage Foundation and made all of these accusations a few months ago without any evidence, is the reason why people are so hesitant to take the more recent one seriously.
If the Heritage Foundation is doing anything to take you down, you’re probably doing something right.
Heritage foundation… Yeah they are pretty much all liars . plus aren’t they against contraception?
So Maine’s choices are an alleged sexual assualter or a known and confirmed adjudicated rapist and 99.9% likely a pedo protector known as Susan Collins? Two extremely shitty choices, I’ll admit.
Platner could drop out and allow a better candidate to run.
He should have never made it this far.
I don’t wanna be that guy, but purposefully removing a condom during sex without consent is rape.
We’ve got weirdos pretending that this waters down the term rape in this thread, lovely.
When you are having sex with someone, presumably you are trusting them? You are trusting them to be safe, to not push boundaries, to do only things you consent to do.
When someone stealths you, they are saying that they don’t give a fuck about you. That trust was misplaced. They are willing to do something to you that you explicitly did not want. Are they going to stop there? (The same type also often pushes for anal/“accidentally” attempts penetration there.)
It’s terrifying and traumatic. Your head races - are you current on your birth control? How likely do you think it is that this guy has some disease? And you get a physical reminder that your consent didn’t matter, the sensation and needing to clean up after if they finished.
It’s also so goddamned common. It’s trivialized.
If you slip the condom off without someone’s consent, you are a rapist. Rape fucks victims up whether it’s a stranger in the bushes or a FWB stealthing you.
Thank you for pointing out why it is rape. It appears to be needed for some people here.
Why would you not wanna be that guy? That’s the reality of it.
Well then don’t be that guy Platner!
Then don’t be. Rape is too overloaded. Find a more descriptive term.
we’re not here to censore violence and minimize what happened to an actual victim of violence because your sensitive ears cant hear it. you and your delicate ears are not the victim here. the rape victim is. stop making their trajedy about your ears.
be a better person than this.
You loaded a lot of BS into my words that wasn’t there just to feel superior. Be a better person.
Then don’t be. Rape is too overloaded. Find a more descriptive term.
We don’t need to load any BS into your words, there’s plenty on display.
So, since you only see what you want to, let me spell it out. They already have various categories of rape. Like aggravated rape and such. These are like rape+. I am saying a more descriptive term like that should be used to highlight the heinousness of the crime. But you refuse to see that. You just want to be righteous so bad you will make up something to be righteous about.
You’re tone policing now.
YATA. Meet my block list.
Perfect, anyone who is incapable of understanding this concept, please do block me. That will save me the trouble of having to explain to people who’s minds are made up and don’t want to rethink their opinion in light of new information.
It’s rape.
Excellent attempt at a mic drop. You wouldn’t want to go and admit that you completely misread what I have been saying all along. That would just be horrible.
Removing a condom during sex without consent, known as “stealthing,” is classified as a form of sexual assault in several countries, including Britain, Canada and parts of Australia. In the United States, Maine, California and Washington state have laws that address the nonconsensual removal of condoms during sex.
There is another term for it, however, it still fits the bill as rape.
I don’t wanna be that guy, but it is rape. If you think that it isn’t, it’s on you to find the descriptive term, not me.
So the guy is also accused of not stopping when she said stop. That is also rape. Do you not see a problem with calling them both rape? Which sounds worse, 2 counts of rape. Or 1 count of rape and one count of <something more descriptive>. To me the second one conveys that he has a pattern of disregard for women beyond just one situation. I also think the condom thing shows intentional deception, where as he could claim he was too far into it to stop when she told him to. Combined as seperate things, they are more incriminating.
So the guy is also accused of not stopping when she said stop. That is also rape. Do you not see a problem with calling them both rape?
…No???
They ARE both rape.
Just because one rape is different from another rape doesn’t mean they’re not both rape, what the actual fuck are you talking about.
One is rape, and the other is like rape+. But the plus is getting lost without a more descriptive term.
where as he could claim he was too far into it to stop when she told him to.
This made my skin crawl.
Yeah, but we know some judges and jury’s would accept this excuse. So using a more descriptive term would better represent the crime to those who might otherwise consider it less serious than it should be.
No, we should use legal terms in a court of law.
I hate politics. And this is precisely why.
She estimated that Platner removed condoms without her consent at least six times when they had sex at both of their residences in D.C. during their two-year, on-and-off relationship. She said she told him that she was upset about it but that he would make light of the situation.
“I confronted him both during and after [sex] because he knew that I was not on birth control and how dangerous that was,” she told The Post in one interview. In another, she said: “He would act like cute about it, like ‘Oh sneaky me.’”
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Ya’ll pretending like men like this, especially men who seek power, don’t commonly sexually assault and rape women.
You should read up on Occam’s razor
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“Tits out of our hands” on a post about forcible rape. Stay classy.
If the guy has any actual desire to do good in the world, the best thing he could do now is drop out. Given his stated politics, I figured the tattoo was from when he was young and stupid, like he said, but this shit… People don’t outgrow this shit.
He needs to go.
I dug up his old Reddit comment about rape victims earlier because I was curious and couldn’t quite remember the details:
“Holy fuck, how about people just take some responsibility for themselves and not get so fucked up they wind up having sex with someone they don’t mean to? Men and women, you make a choice to consume enough of a substance to lose your self control. So if you don’t want to be in a comprising situation, act like an adult for fucks sake.”
He needs to drop out.
You should get a job
As a reporter? I think they are doing a good job informing.
Yeah, there’s still plausible deniability, I’m not fully convinced he’s a rapist, I’m just not particularly convinced he isn’t given the accusations. Holding his ground will say he’s more invested in his ego than his professed beliefs.
If he’s innocent I hope he drops out and continues the fight to clear his name.
How is it that Trump can say he grabs women by the pussy and still become president and Platner is so far only accused of sexual assault and his support is quickly eroding and he’s being asked to leave the race? Can it be the Democrats inability to articulate a response to the rigid parameters imposed on behavior by those in the party who insist such adherence is mandatory? The Republican response to Platner staying in the race is a known quantity that can be addressed and diminished even without the mountain of ammunition the Republicans can give Democrats. Yet the Democrats seem completely unprepared for the fight.
Maybe, and this is me having to think a few seconds… Progressive voters align more with moral behavior than Trump voters? A lot of progressives want things that make people’s lives better because they believe it is the right thing, and I would argue that raping people is a thing that they would deem as bad.
Now, if your argument is that this is only an accusation and not proven… That’s a little more understandable. I would argue that this most recent accusation seems very credible. It’s also kinda fucking weird to say “If they’re okay with the child rapist Trump, we should be okay with an adult rapist!” That’s better in a way that sort of makes light of rape.
I feel like if you sexually assault someone, you should never be allowed power should not be a controversial opinion, but I fucking bet it is.
I can’t believe this had to be said. But thanks. Holy shit. I’m reminded at times like this that a lot of people that follow politics literally just treat it like a team sport. Like, it’s entertaining for them but they aren’t actually interested in obtaining power to achieve political goals. They just want their team to win.
There is something to be said about these types of people. They fight for the person and not the message. His message is what matters here, and I think a hard line in the sand of “No Rapists” shouldn’t be a hard bar to cover. He had a lot of other issues, but that’s kind of an easy line for a lot of people to draw.
Agreed. We’re also seeing a lot of people expose themselves as rapist or rape apologist because of this. Like, I hope this can be a learning moment for them, but I doubt it will be.
It’s just really basic shit. Like not understanding that consent can be revoked at anytime.
Like, even people I really respect are trying to place doubt on this poor woman.
Like I really respect Ryan Grim from DropSite news. But he literally just posted about “missing context”.
This is not “journalist integrity”. This is a conscious choice by Politico to not include a portion of the story in their story that would introduce victim blaming. It is not “context”. It’s about as useful as telling us what Platner had to eat on the day he raped her.
CONSENT CAN BE REVOKED AT ANY TIME. If Platner didn’t stop when that consent was revoked than he’s a rapist. That’s it.
I guess Ryan Grim has boomer brainrot or something. He should have provided the additional “context” and then explained it how I just did. This “asking for it” rape culture shit really needs to die. It’s people like him that I hope learn from this. Because DropSite and him are really doing good work. I think it just shows how much rape culture is still a part of our society throughout the political spectrum.
It’s just hard right now to educate people when the tensions and frustrations are so high right now. It’s hard to differentiate between the people worth using this moment to teach; and those that should be shamed for being rape apologist. Some people are just not worth the effort and that’s ok.
Sorry, rant, but I read your reply after being frustrated by this shit.
I think you’re missing the part where the people that supported Platner are no longer going to support him after finding out he’s a rapist. The people that supported Trump were fine voting for a rapist. Like, are you actually asking the Democrats to attempt to convince their voters to vote for a rapist? That’s where we are at now?
Someone doesn’t like winning /s
People like HBO Velma here who are far more gullible than they understand but still confident make up a large part of the center left. Probably thought Kamala was a good choice too.
Gullible to believe what? That a guy with a violent history would have the ability to rape a woman? What world do you live in where this isn’t a common held truth?
I was very unhappy with Kamala, not that you’ll believe me. Rather talk shit than talk about the real issue at hand.
Everyone forgot about Amber Turd already. These are accusations, and already people act like he was convicted. Just shows throwing an accusation could impact someone’s political career just as much as if they were actually convicted. By the time you get proven innocent people will have already made up their minds and moved on.
Throwing an accusation that’s backed up by evidence, let’s be clear here.
From my understanding one of the accusations seemed to have records but the other did not. And again, just assuming every accusation is true, things can be doctored and faked.
Wild that people think hesitating is somehow the same as supporting rapists or is wrong somehow. People have their lives ruined over false accusations but nobody seems to care about that.
When 1 in 4 women have been sexually assaulted and 1 in 6 women have been raped in the US, these accusations do not shock me in the slightest.
It’s much more likely that this man with a history of violence took advantage of these women to get what he wanted.
5 in 6 women could be sexually assaulted and I still would hold off passing judgement until there was at least a hearing.
I’m not shocked either. It’s seems like that’s probably what happened. Again, wild that wanting to hold off judgements until someone gets their day in court should not be controversial lol.
If your excuse is that things can be doctored and faked, then it kinda feels like you’ve already made up your mind on this. You don’t seem like you care what the evidence is.
Like, if you’re gonna not care, at least don’t be a coward about it. I get that people won’t like you, but be more brazen in your misogyny so that people will avoid and dislike you sooner!
Also, just to start a fire for fun, Amber Heard was abused, even if she wasn’t a perfect victim. It’s pretty well-documented, and Johnny Depp is a piece of shit. I don’t like that she returned the abuse, but that happens a lot in abusive relationships.
98% of perpetrators never see a courtroom.
Again you’re throwing numbers at me when I’ve already said it’s not about the numbers. It’s the belief that we should not let accusations be the same as convictions.
If this were a conspiracy for Collins, they’d have waited til AFTER the deadline for Democrats to replace Platner on the ballot.
And that’s to say nothing but disgust for some of the people in here who have chosen to respond to rape accusations with Trumpian levels of disregard for truth or reality.
now explain the 5 year gap.
Trauma is a bitch to deal with.
Explain why you don’t support women who were raped.
Bad archive service that edits stored content and uses visitors to DDoS a website.Actually really good point, I meant to grab the original Washington Post link anyway. It’s updated.
So are we saying our preferred outcome is for Susan Collins to retain her seat? I have a hard time landing on that as the morally correct choice no matter what is on the other side of the table. I think what does the most good for the most people in this situation is for her to be out of office.
Platner should drop out and they should coalesce around Troy Jackson if he wants to run. Appeal to the base that wanted Platner in the first place and focus on forcing that old corpse Collins out no matter what.
Who is Troy Jackson? I am not from New England so I don’t know much about any state politics there.
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I don’t know him like you do, so I can only say nothing. Don’t wanna slander people.
so both these accusers were “raped” in 2021. So why wait until now.
Why is Platner such a threat to the old Democrats?
Plenty of rape victims take a while to come forward. This is pretty common.
It’s like we all collectively forgot about Me Too or it wasn’t nearly as effective as we wanted it to be.
I’m incredibly disappointed in the reaction from some on the left to this issue.
I don’t think MeToo failed. It succeeded in making known how prevalent sexual assault was. And it allowed women, including this women, to come forward with her story.
I do think MeToo could never really fight against sexual assault in its entirety because it wasn’t aimed at the perpetrators. It was aimed at the victims, to tell them they weren’t alone, that it was okay to talk about their experiences, that they had people that understood them.
And that is a great first step! But to really fight sexual assault, you need to aim at the those that commit assault as well.
You need to have them listen to the stories of the victims. You need to have them hear their pain that they have and continue to cause. You need to have them reconcile what they have done with who they are. It is not enough to prop up and help the victims. You also have to reform and help the offenders.
And that sounds a little crazy, that somehow the offenders are due some sort of relief for the crimes they have done. I don’t want anyone reading that to think that they don’t owe their victims some form of becoming whole again. Only that there has to be a movement aimed at the offenders of sexual assault to truly fight against it.
I know personally, I am much better informed now about the systemic realities around silencing of rape and sexual assault victims. I knew before some, I just know more now. Part of that was just having more life experiences in general, but I also credit Me Too.
Not crazy at all, this entire comment is great and thank you.
Why can’t Platner keep his hands to himself?
Because of people like you who will always find an excuse for their rapist.
not to victim blame, but maybe don’t have sex with nazi mercenaries?
Literally the stupidest fuckin thing anyone could say about this.
I refuse to shed a tear for someone who dated a nazi mercenary, she was OK when he was a nazi paid to kill brown people, she doesn’t get to act innocent.
she’s still a victim and hopefully gets justice. the same way the people he killed for money deserve justice. But in America, browns lives don’t matter. a white tear is worth more than a brown life.
Yeah it’s her fault he kept taking the condom off after promising to use one.
you don’t get brighter red flag than nazi tattoos.
I wouldn’t have even known it was a nazi tattoo, and neither did Platner when he got it while deployed as a 20-year-old dumb marine. Enough with this AIPAC-peddled bullshit.
he wasn’t a stupid 20 years old, he was happy to become a mercenary, and openly reminisces about being a mercenary.
And being a stupid 20 year old and ending with a nazi is an OK excuse, but the you do tattoo removal or cover up. keeping it after being informed that it is a nazi symbol is a statement.
DNC propping up a nazi mercenary it’s unacceptable.
we need antizionist politicians, but we don’t need Nazis
Do you think his on again off again girlfriend would have known as much about Nazi tattoos as the former mercenary?
Stop victim blaming in here. I, for one, agree with you he was never a good candidate. Let’s cast blame where it belongs - on Platner.
she was OK with him being a mercenary,
at some point, if i were to run naked on a clearly marked and fenced minefield, I cannot really blame other people for my stupidity.
He sexually assaulted her.
Citation needed. What are you talking about, “mercenary”? A driver?
In fact, if I recall he actively regrets the actions of Iraq and Afghanistan. People can’t change?
Sad thing is he’s still better than Collins. We need people advocating for progressive values; not just anti-zionists btw. Don’t get tunnel-vision!
He signed up for several tours as a private mercenary for hire in Afghanistan.
Clearly he hasn’t changed as much as he claimed.
6 months as a driver for a US Diplomat for the State Department. Hardly a hardened killer, lol.
Oh well, I guess it’s all moot now. Susan Collins gets in, which is somehow even worse.
I am pissed that “Nazi mercenary that killed people that looked like me” is shoved under the rug and cunts online still make excuses like “People can change”
but removing a condom while having sex with someone who sleeps with nazi mercenaries is suddenly a career ender.
Don’t get me wrong, it should be a carrer ender. but the first one should be more of a “straight to jail, you have bo place in any human society”, But killing people that look like me is acceptable.
Y’all wanted to elect him to the Senate despite the Nazi tattoo, but you want to dog this woman for having an on and off again relationship with him?
She still didn’t deserve to be sexually assaulted. He was the one to remove the condoms.
I was in disbelief how the whole establishment was like “Please,. vote for this nazi mercenary”
like how low the bar can get?
How about you stop blaming his victims when they’re coming forward to inform the public about who Platner really is before getting elected.
I’m mostly frustrated that killing brown people for money is acceptable profession in the US, but they draw the line at hurting a woman who’s OK with nazi mercenaries.
In the US, brown lives don’t matter. And this shows it.
You’d rather his victims stay silent and allow him to be elected?
