The Stuebenville rape case is making news because of both the unabashed use of videos and social media by the rapists that practically give a minute-by-minute description of what happened, and because of the relentless work of crime blogger Alenxandria Goddard of Prinniefied. An ex-resident of Steubenville who knows the small town's obsession with the high school football team, she suspected that there was probably more to the story of football players allegedly assaulting a young girl, and made sure to preserve evidence of references to the rape made on social media. Somewhere there are pictures of the victim, naked and unconscious, that were texted between the rapists. There's a 12 minute video of the young rapists joking about how dead the girl must be, and how hard they raped her, with various other male voices laughing in the background. There are tweets referencing rape, such as this one:
"She's deader than OJ's wife." The male in the video says at one point. "She's deader than Caylee Anthony." After some more horrendous "jokes" about how the victim must be dead because of the fact that she didn't move during the assault, he moves onto similarly idiotic "jokes" about her rape: "they raped her quicker than Mike Tyson raped that one girl."
The case has even caught the attention of Anonymous, a loosely organized group of activist hackers, who leaked the video. You can see it on Prinniefied, but I warn you, the inane comments about rape and the deathly appearance of the victim, not to mention the hysterical laughter that goes on throughout, make it hard to watch. I made it through minute four. Anonymous has also reported on finding evidence in the emails of the webmaster of the football team's website that imply adults involved with the team may have somehow known about the rape and kept mum, or perhaps even helped facilitate it. Hopefully by now you're interested enough to start looking for updates in the news.
Only two of the boys have been charged, despite the fact that there were clearly more involved, who at the very least of guilty of allowing the crime to happen, of being passive bystanders while a girl was robbed of any and all dignity and respect.
The simple brazenness of the young rapists in capturing the rape in various forms - pictures, videos, and tweets - speaks to the incredible sense of entitlement and safety they felt in their actions. What kind of 16-year-olds think they can post about raping someone and not get in trouble? The answer is16-year-olds who have grown up being taught that they are entitled to take what they want by force, that there won't be consequences to pay, that if the cost is a deep and horrendous violation of another human being, that's alright. This rape exemplifies the fact that we live in a rape culture, where young men grow up learning from the older people around them that things like this are ok.
We need to stop pretending that's not true. We need to stop pretending that rape doesn't happen in good neighborhoods, that wealthy, educated people don't rape, that football players don't rape.
We need to stop pretending that we don't live in a culture of rape, where the use of sexist language and jokes, glamorization of sexual violence, normalized language of assault and trivialization of of sexual harassment don't add up to a culture that allows and even supports rape.
It's time to stop all of that and take action in the little things, which is what this blog is all about. Don't joke about rape. Don't dismiss a woman who feels uncomfortable in the workplace because of sexual attention from a co-worker. Don't ask what a victim was wearing or how much she drank. Don't put pressure on men to "score." Think critically about how all these little things add up to a culture in which a group of 16-year-old boys truly think they can transport an unconscious girl from place to place, rape her multiple times, take pictures and videos of her to share with their friends, and never feel one iota of a consequence.
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