By Elle Morris
Rape is not only the most despicable of the many ways men abuse women, but as the recent numbers released by the Department of Defence show, it supercedes any possible finer influences with this base instinct. It is a crime of violence not sex, triggered by feelings of gross inferiority and perpertrated by pathetic inadequates more used to solo sex.
Dear American Media:
Regarding your recent coverage of the Steubenville, Ohio rape trial: Congratulations on disgusting us more than normally!
You may recall that not long ago in India, a woman was gang-raped and it sparked protests in the streets; men and women who came together in a stirring and absurdly heartening display as they demanded their government stop dithering and start protecting the women. Who cared about tradition if tradition said it was okay for men to abuse women simply because they felt like it? It was time for men to pull their heads out of their asses and start behaving like humans!
Over here in America, the news reported on these protests with the smug quality of a parent who’s managed to teach their dog not to pee on the carpet. It was distinctly condescending, a tone that suggested, “Look how backwards things have been in India this whole time. The silly things have finally realized rape is bad! Isn’t it wonderful how advanced America is?”
It’s a pretty common attitude in our media: America is king of the world on all fronts. America is free from those nasty, barbaric impulses that only third world and backwards thinking countries call acceptable. I call BULLSHIT.
If America is so great and free from all those impulses, we wouldn’t have heard of the Steubenville rapists because we wouldn’t HAVE them. We wouldn’t support and perpetuate a culture that sympathizes with a couple of good-at-tests-and-football-when-they’re-not-RAPING-CLASSMATES boys. And this is exactly the culture that we live with and perpetuate. The media, CNN in particular, has gone out of their way to make these boys into tragic fucking heroes, lamenting the time lost to perfecting their football and musing on what the possible repercussions could be to their futures having been labeled rapists so early on.
Oh, oh no, these boys had such talent in football and now they won’t be able to play because they’ll spend a year in juvenile detention for destroying a 16 year old girl’s life. Oh sadness, they’ll be known as rapists because they raped a girl and took pictures and video and then distributed the video to their friends. Oh, the horror. Let me show you all my tears for their sad, sad plight.
OH WAIT. I DON’T HAVE ANY.
If they had such great talent and didn’t want to throw their chances away, maybe they shouldn’t have committed rape. I find it so hard to swallow that in 2013 we STILL need to go over the rules of humanity because we’re STILL making excuses for rapists. The media is in an absolute TIZZY as they try to talk themselves through the verbal gymnastics of victim-blaming and rapist-justification.
THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION FOR RAPE. NO MEANS ‘FUCK OFF’.
No does not mean ‘yes’. If you have sex with anybody who’s said ‘no’, you have raped them. Raping is a crime and makes you a rapist, regardless of your fucking talents (no humor intended.)
Even if they’re pretty, even if you’ve been dating them, even if you’ve married them. Even if they’ve put on tight clothes, or a short skirt, or have taken to walking naked down the street: If they do not say ‘yes’ to your request for sex, they clearly don’t want it, and you are raping them. Even after sex has started! Nobody owes you sex. Nobody deserves to be violated in such a traumatizing way. (These boys aren’t even getting a full sentence for rape; they were on trial as kids and were sentenced as kids. The sentence they’ve been handed isn’t remotely equivalent to the horror that their victim will have to live through – she’s already experienced homicide threats because she dared to report a crime committed against her person.) And guess what? These boys don’t deserve the slightest bit of sympathy. When you commit a crime, you pay for your crime.
That’s how it works and fuck all the news channels for trying to make it seem like these two boys somehow deserve an exemption or special treatment. Because really? The victim was drunk– that’s what you were worried about?
I DON’T CARE IF SHE WAS OFF HER FACE ON OPIATES AT A PARTY ON THE MOON. CONSENT IS NEVER TO BE ASSUMED.
I’m not saying a man can’t be angry that he was denied. I’m not saying that a man isn’t allowed to be frustrated when a girl says yes and changes her mind. I’m not even saying that all women are saints – to be sure there are some out there who will lead another on. So yeah, a guy can rant and scream and have all the temper tantrums he wants when it happens. But that in no way makes it okay to rape.
And how do you, O Media, live with yourselves, trying to turn this into the fault of the victim? Have you listened to yourselves lately? The very idea that a girl getting drunk somehow makes her rape less legitimate, when a boy being drunk wouldn’t cause a batted eyelash, is exactly why 16-year-old boys think that it’s okay to rape their classmates. Can you really look at yourselves in the mirror, knowing that you go out to face the nation and tell them that boys deserve easy outs when they commit crimes against women? Are your heads seriously so far up your asses?
If so, get them out, because let me explain something to you: There is one person in a rape who should be given special consideration. That is the victim. The victim is the one who has to go to the hospital and pay out her nose for the rape kit, blood tests, pills, and therapy sessions that will doubtlessly be needed in the face of such a horrible event. The victim is the one who has to live in fear of it happening again. The victim is the one who lives with the friends of the rapists threatening her, her own friends distancing themselves from her, the perceived shame of having not been ‘good’ enough.
And the reporters get out there and gleefully help to continue and extend the whole debacle every time they make special note of the fact that the girl was at a party. The idea that girls need special rules governing their behavior or they’ll be raped is disgusting, but that’s essentially what all ‘rape prevention’ boils down to: Carry pepper spray. Carry a whistle. Walk home with your keys between your knuckles. Don’t stay out late. Don’t wear short skirts. Don’t wear tight clothes. Don’t go to that part of town. Don’t look too pretty. Be nice to strangers, even when you feel uncomfortable. Are you sure you’re not just regretting a spur of the moment desire? Are you sure you’re not just trying to hide a secret boyfriend?
Let’s try something a lot simpler from the opposite perspective: Don’t rape. Rape is a crime (as well as sure indication of your inadequacy), and criminals are not fucking welcome here.