Ashley Wagner assaulted by John Coughlin | Page 8 | Golden Skate

Ashley Wagner assaulted by John Coughlin

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moonvine

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skateluvr; said:
Statistically, John may have been a victim before he became a predator. God bless any and all who are triggered or upset by these threads. ��

Unfortunately this happens far too often.
 

Mrs. P

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It’s pretty simple really:

Ashley didn’t give consent for John to do what he did. It’s sexual assault.

Everything else, such as Ashley’s age and what was done or not done, is irrelevant to the above.
 

Ziotic

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I’m truly horrified how many people here are trying to defend this situation.

It’s sickening and I can only imagine that some people defending Coughlin have possibility done something similar in nature and are now just trying to assuage their guilt.

Guess what folks, it was assault. She never gave him permission to touch her, to kiss her, or to be groped. She wasn’t asking for it and she didn’t deserve it. There was no consent, or implied consent since she was asleep.

Horrified plain and simple.
 

Casual

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Umm...I don't believe I accused you of anything, Casual. I responded to nussnacker's post. Are you also nussnacker? I explained to him/her that I had not meant to give that impression.

LOL, first nussnacker disagreed with me (quoting me), and then you seemed to agree with him/her, and also accused someone (skating community?) of reflexively defending JC.

So I just wanted to set the record straight, since I was in fact the opposite, back when it was very unpopular to stand with his accusers.

Fully supporting his accusers (including Ashley) does not prevent me from trying to see a bigger picture. This is not as black and white as people make it out. Kids need to be protected, and better educated. What we can say for certain is that the system fails these kids, and needs to change.
 

andromache

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It’s pretty simple really:

Ashley didn’t give consent for John to do what he did. It’s sexual assault.

Everything else, such as Ashley’s age and what was done or not done, is irrelevant to the above.

Ultimately I agree.

But arguably her age is relevant as it made her an easier target due to the power imbalance. Of course, a younger person can assault an older person, or an employee can assault their manager (or whatever), but it is more typical to see a power imbalance similar to what occurred here. John was older and more sexually experienced. Ashley was younger and more inexperienced - as a result, she had much less experience with how she should've dealt with this than she would with a few more years of experience. Men will prey on younger women because they are easier to intimidate and coerce into non-consensual situations, and it seems like that is what happened here.
 

Moxiejan

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Why do you assume he touched her genitals? I didn't get that from her story. Yes, most 'normal' guys wouldn't do what he did, but who knows what happened throughout the night, maybe he misjudged a flirtation that wasn't there? We don't know. And she might not know either if she had too much to drink. But to what basically amounts to a drunk guy and drunk girl finding themselves in bed together and she kicks him out when he starts groping her, well, that happens all the time. Not saying it is right, but not much even happened.

She said he put his hands INSIDE her PANTS and started groping. What else is there to “grope”?
Sorry, but I don’t consider that “not much”. And this wasn’t the case of two drunken people voluntarily going in a room together (a degree of consent implied) and then one of them deciding to stop. It was a person entering a room uninvited, crawling into a bed uninvited & groping another person uninvited.
 

magictodo

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I'm disgusted by like 40% of the comments here. Seriously. A person was asleep and another person touched her without her consent. FULL STOP.

I just want to say that I'm sickened by this and send all of the love and support I can to Ashley and the other women hurt by John. I support you, I believe you, and I wish only the best for you.
 

Casual

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It’s pretty simple really:

Ashley didn’t give consent for John to do what he did. It’s sexual assault.

Everything else, such as Ashley’s age and what was done or not done, is irrelevant to the above.

Yes, but... how do you know? We don't know what happened at the party. What we do know is, she did not object when he climbed into bed with her, and kept silent for five full minutes while he was groping her.

How can you be certain he didn't think he had her full consent (misguided as he was)? As soon as she asked, he stopped - that's a very important part of this story, too.

It was sexual assault. No doubt. And people are overreacting, painting it into something much worse than what actually happened.
 

Mrs. P

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Yes, but... how do you know? We don't know what happened at the party. What we do know is, she did not object when he climbed into bed with her, and kept silent for five full minutes while he was groping her.

How can you be certain he didn't think he had her full consent (misguided as he was)? As soon as she asked, he stopped - that's a very important part of this story, too.

It was sexual assault. No doubt. And people are overreacting, painting it into something much worse than what actually happened.

Again what happened before and after the assault doesn’t change that it was assult. It obviously impacted her negatively since the incident and I don’t see the point of splitting hairs over it. It’s assault plain and simple and it was wrong.

For me I find little to gain to over analyze it. It doesn’t change the negative effect it has on Ashley. And far be it for me to tell people be it Ashley or folks here how to react to the actions that were done.

ETA: Andromache, re age. You make a good point. In that context, I mention that age doesn’t matter as far as whether it’s was assault but yes age is certainly relevant when considering why it happened when it did.
 
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GermaricanMix

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I am sickened that this happened to her and many other girls/boys, but I am so very proud of her for speaking up. I hope the people in power take note and start protecting their skaters, and that the skaters who belittled the other victims have a real intense think about why they reacted that way and apologize.

As for this thread, some of you should be deeply ashamed of yourselves. That is all.
 

believed

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Yes, but... how do you know? We don't know what happened at the party. What we do know is, she did not object when he climbed into bed with her, and kept silent for five full minutes while he was groping her.

How can you be certain he didn't think he had her full consent (misguided as he was)? As soon as she asked, he stopped - that's a very important part of this story, too.

It was sexual assault. No doubt. And people are overreacting, painting it into something much worse than what actually happened.

Because SHE WAS ASLEEP!!! She was literally sleeping when she was woken up by him slipping into bed with her and then touching her!!! She didn't verbally object at first because she was afraid (which she is allowed to be), because she didn't know what was happening, because she wasn't sure if she had the strength to physically push him off, and because she hoped he would stop when he realized she was not awake. Him stopping when she spoke up doesn't mean it made everything okay, it doesn't mean he suddenly had consent before. It means that he sexually assaulted her while she was ASLEEP!!!, no matter what happened at the party.

People downplaying his actions, such as what you are doing, is not helpful or needed.

Quotes in reference:

I was offered up a bed and didn’t think twice about taking it, and soon drifted off to sleep.

It was the middle of the night when I felt him crawl into my bed. I had been sleeping and didn't move because I didn't understand what it meant. I thought he just wanted a place to sleep. But then he started kissing my neck. I pretended to be deep asleep, hoping he would stop. He didn’t. When his hands started to wander, when he started touching me, groping my body, I tried to shift around so that he would think I was waking up and would stop. He didn’t.

When he continued to wander further over my body, I started to get scared because he was so much bigger than I was, and I didn’t know if I could push him off. I just continued to lie there pretending to be asleep, hoping that he would get bored and go somewhere else. He didn’t.
 

Lissy

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There’s no reason for me to believe Coughlin did anything bad. Even with Ashley’s story he stopped when she asked.

He never had her permission in the first place. Stopping when asking does not mean he had an invitation to begin with.
 

cathlen

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Thank you, Ashley, for speaking up. This is so important. :bow:
 

Beckaboomer

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Yes, but... how do you know? We don't know what happened at the party. What we do know is, she did not object when he climbed into bed with her, and kept silent for five full minutes while he was groping her.

How can you be certain he didn't think he had her full consent (misguided as he was)? As soon as she asked, he stopped - that's a very important part of this story, too.

It was sexual assault. No doubt. And people are overreacting, painting it into something much worse than what actually happened.

How do we know what?

I cannot stress this enough, it LITERALLY DOES NOT MATTER what else happened at the party. If Ashley drank, if she flirted, IF SHE HAD FLAT-OUT ASKED HIM ON A DATE earlier that evening, this would not matter in the slightest and would not make her story less horrifying or less a description of sexual assault. I don't know how this can be unclear at all.
 

Lissy

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Friendly reminder to everyone: consent matters. Unless there is an actual conversation, consent is rarely implied. It doesn’t matter if you are sober, drunk, in a committed relationship with the person, single, have slept with the person before, ETC, you are the only person who has a right to say yes or no with, to, and for your own body. If you say no or if it is unwanted, that is a form of sexual or physical assault. Silence is another form of saying no unless actually discussed.

Also, fear and/or general comfort with another can often lead to silence. It still does not mean consent.
 

LiamForeman

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It’s pretty simple really:

Ashley didn’t give consent for John to do what he did. It’s sexual assault.

Everything else, such as Ashley’s age and what was done or not done, is irrelevant to the above.

I agree. But who is saying she was not assaulted, legally speaking? I must have missed that post.
 

Fluture

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I cannot understand some of the comments here. This is not a different "mentality". It is ignorance. Alcohol doesn't excuse this behaviour. Nothing does. I am a young woman myself and hearing some excuse this behaviour by saying it was just a party and there was alcohol and "he stopped when she told him to" truly horrifies me. To all the people who commented this, please just think, for a moment of the women and girls (and it doesn't even have to be only girls, it can happen to everybody!) in your own life. Imagine them lying in bed, sleeping (!!!) and a grown man coming into their room, crawling into their bed to touch them against their will. How would you feel if this had happened to your wife, daughter, sister, niece and she was too scared to speak up until now? Ashley said "stop", yes. Thank god she did. But what if she hadn't? What if she'd been so shocked, so scared of the grown man lying on top of her, touching her, and had kept quiet? Would he have stopped? I doubt it. He would have taken her silence for consent, just like he took her being asleep for consent, when it is everything but. She is allowed to be afraid. Imagine waking up to this. No one knows how they'd react. Of course it's important to educate girls about consent but no matter what you're being taught, if you're too shocked or too scared to say something in that moment (and it happens!), it is NOT your fault. He should not have done that in the first place. What he did was wrong and it doesn't matter if it could have been worse, it is still wrong! Simple logic, common sense: You do not crawl into a person's bed and begin to touch them, especially not if that person is a minor, and especially not if this person is asleep and has no way to consent! How hard is that to understand?

And suggesting Ashley came forward with this now to self-promote herself is beyond disgusting and one of the reasons why so many are scared into silence. Why is it so hard to believe the victims? Why do some always have to try to find excuses when there are none? Why do people always blame the victims? Ashley is brave for speaking up and what happened to her and the other victims is awful. Period.
 

brightphoton

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For anyone who thinks that maybeeee Ashley gave consent for John to do anything, sorta, kinda, implicitly -- she didn't. Here's her own words:

"I now know that regardless of the events of that night, I got into that bed thinking I was safe to just fall asleep. He was the one who took away that safety. I went into that house just wanting to have fun with my friends. He was the one who shattered all of that. Going to the party in no way, shape or form gave that man permission to touch me. I never once said anything that made him think that it was okay to take control of my body away from me. My presence at a party did not imply my consent. I wish I could have learned that sooner. The years of guilt I have felt should not have rested on me, but on him."

another very telling quote:

"There also was this: I was a young skater coming up through the ranks in a judged sport. I didn't want to stir the pot. I didn't want to add anything to my career that would make me seem undesirable or dramatic. I didn't want to be known in figure skating as the athlete who would cause trouble. And I genuinely didn't feel like anyone would listen to me anyway. Everyone really liked this guy. I even liked him. "
 

doublequad

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Aug 4, 2018
This thread should be locked. Comments comparing Ashley's situation to being patted on the back as assault is sickening.
 

Mrs. P

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I agree. But who is saying she was not assaulted, legally speaking? I must have missed that post.

My response is to the fact there seems to be a lot of hand wrangling over the extent of the assault and how people are reacting to Ashley’s story.
 
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