On Steubenville

Trigger warning

The Steubenville gang-rape has brought an important fact to light: women should not get drunk, lest they be raped.

Okay, I'll bite.

Ladies, don't be drunk,
don't be sober,
don't walk alone at night,
don't go out in broad daylight.
Don't be a granny,
don't be a baby,
don't wear skirts,
and don't wear trousers.
Don't be straight,
don't be gay,
in fact don't even exist,
or else take some damn responsibility for what happens to the rapist.

As you can see, it's very hard for a woman - men too, but mostly women - to live her life without handing some manner of ammunition to a rapist, sometimes even after she's done living her life.  The internet is alight with discussion as to how this case is a lesson to young men about the perils of social media - a sentiment echoed by the judge himself - when it should be a lesson to young men about how it's wrong to go around raping.

CNN has lamented the fact that the boys will have to sign the sex offenders' register and have that looming over them, but they raped somebody!  At the time that they raped her, they admitted they weren't even sure if she was alive or dead, but they raped her all the same then urinated on her body when they were done.  They carry hatred and contempt for women to such a degree that it makes them a great danger to any woman within striking distance yet CNN finds it uncomfortable that others be allowed to know this fact in order to maintain public safety.

Others have said that the whole thing is just an attack on Ohio's football program, an attitude which makes them scarcely less dangerous than the two rapists at the centre of all this.  This attitude stems from the behaviour of the colleges themselves, who will gladly expel a rape victim to protect her rapist in order that he keeps on making them money from ticket sales.

In reacting to this case, society has once again put money and status and testosterone above women's bodily autonomy.  Excuse me while I rampage and break things.