Jody Raphael, a friend and colleague in the anti-sexual violence movement, has released a book that is essential reading for anyone interested in the issues surrounding rape, particularly non-stranger sexual assault. She cuts through myth and innuendo with strong and clear language and sets the record straight. Highly recommended.
Occidental University in Los Angeles and Swarthmore outside of Philadelphia are both highly selective liberal arts institutions of higher learning. Both are also being challenged by students who suffered sexual violence under their umbrellas and then negative responses and ill treatment when they reported it. One by one, colleges and universities are being called out. It’s an idea whose time has come; thus (with a nod to Victor Hugo) nothing will stop it.
Two boys, aged 10 and 11, will stand trial for conspiracy to commit rape and murder in Washington State. Although state law apparently presumes a lack of criminal responsibility (even juvenile responsibility) for children 8 to 12, the presumption can be overcome with evidence. Such evidence was introduced in a competency hearing, including evidence that the boys knew the nature and character of what they wanted to do.
What they wanted to do, complete with a stolen knife and handgun in their possession along with a written plan, was to rape and then stab a fellow female student. One apparently even understood that rape was not a sexual act, but more a display of power and control. One of the boys was asked if he understood that murder was wrong. His response was “yes, I wanted her dead.”
At this point, like anyone decent, I am thankful the plan was foiled. As for what lies ahead, or how these two arrived in a courthouse on trial for their youth, I have no answers.
Jerry Sandusky has again been given a forum in which to claim he is innocent of the charges he was convicted of 9 months ago, this time through a NBC “Today” show interview with filmmaker John Ziegler, whose apparent ambition is to clear Joe Paterno of any responsibility for inaction or worse during the terrible years Sandusky hunted children within the Penn State community.
Several groups, most prominently the dynamic support group Male Survivor, have rightfully called out NBC and Today for airing the interview in what looks like an effort to boost ratings with a draw backward to a sensational case rather than any real effort to shed further light on the story.
The fact is, Sandusky’s reign of terror, heartbreak and destruction is widely documented, legally and factually established, and thankfully over. What matters now is not this miserable predator and whatever delusions he wishes to entertain in the twilight of his life. What matters is only the well-being of the men and boys who survived what Sandusky subjected them to, and what lessons can be learned in order to make such horrors less and less common.
The only positive thing, perhaps, that emerged from Today’s bad choice and Ziegler’s tone deaf crusade is the Paterno family’s distancing themselves from the effort. As Wick Sollers, a family attorney said, Sandusky’s comments were “transparently self-serving and yet another insult to the victims.”
Amen.
So now, please, give this criminal no further exposure.
Left-leaning Think Progress posted an excellent and highly instructive series of paragraphs today (with clear documentation) on how various national media outlets chose to report on the verdict handed down yesterday in the Steubenville sexual assault case.
CNN, ABC and NBC all focused primarily on the promising careers and positive aspects of the convicted teenagers. USA Today and the Associated Press focused on the fact that the victim was drunk, as if she were frankly complicit in bringing on what happened to her.
Yahoo, though, went the furthest in blaming her, suggesting that her choice to report being repeatedly sexually violated, filmed and humiliated, was to blame for tearing the town apart.
So it’s her fault for “ruining the lives” of such promising young athletes. Her fault for being drunk. Her fault for coming forward and “tearing a town apart.”
And we wonder why so few victims report.