[Trigger Warnings: rape, victim blaming]
While I was driving to work early last week, in between “Blurred Lines” (oh the irony) and an old Katy Perry hit, the the DJs briefly mentioned a “sex scandal” that they were just getting the details on. I was expecting to hear about Anthony Weiner (the most unfortunately named politician in the world), or a sports star, or even an A-list actor. What I was not expecting to hear was a brief overview of two teenage football players accused of sexual crimes against six different young women.
There are a number of things that really bothered me about this story and the way it was covered, but let’s start with the use of the phrase “sex scandal” in reference to teenage boys accused of rape. Most “sex scandals” we hear about in the news today are about the rich and famous. With the rise in gossip websites (I am looking right the fuck at you, Perez) and social networking, celebrities have next to no privacy; their dirty laundry gets aired out for all the world to see. We’re used to this phenomenon; we don’t see it as uncommon and celebrities having sex scandals happens about as often as my mom changes her nail polish.
The phrase “sex scandal” is almost always used to talk about powerful people having consensual sex with each other. It’s become almost glamorized; like, when you hear it, you expect a Rolls Royce to roll on up and take you to Scandaland, the sexiest place on earth. Obviously it’s not used in a totally positive light (Charlie Sheen, Tiger Woods, Kobe Bryant) but most gossip journalists will gloss over the nasty bits to bring you the latest sexy sex news. Sex scandals have become sexy.
You know what’s not sexy, though? Two teen boys being charged with rape by force or fear, lewd acts on a victim under 14, false imprisonment and dissuading a witness. That is the exact opposite of sexy. That’s horrifying. So why are people even referring to this story as a “sex scandal”? Is it because there are teenage girls involved and we have to over-sexualize everything they do, even if it’s forced upon them? Is it because the boys are football players and therefore can do no wrong? Maybe we just don’t know how to talk about children (everyone involved is a minor but some of them are under 14) going through traumatic events anymore because we’re so desensitized to it as a culture.
They haven’t covered any of this on the news where I live. But I did some Googling and happened upon an article from a Los Angeles news affiliate. There’s a video at the top of the article, where the mother of one of these boys calls the entire case against her son a lie. She’s sitting in a quiet room and very calmly talking into the camera. There are multiple shots of her wedding ring, as if to communicate that she’s a “decent woman”. She worries about how her son (who was released from juvenile hall today — the other boy was not released) will be treated when he goes back to school. She doesn’t want people to accuse him of anything or call him any rude names. At no point does she say anything about the girls, except to call them liars. She goes on to say that her son had “consensual sex with another high school student. They have no evidence of him raping anyone.” The whole interview is intercut with footage of her son playing football.
The video ends with the mother of one of the victims yelling at a news crew because she’s understandably pissed off about what’s happening to her daughter. She’s not sat down in a room somewhere, by the way. They’re following her through a parking lot immediately after the hearing. And there’s definitely a “woah that lady needs to chill out” vibe coming from everyone around her. Already, at the VERY BEGINNING of this case, through the mothers, the media is setting up at least one of the boys to seem like a perfect angel who would never do anything wrong. Already they’re setting up the girls to look like hysterical women seeking attention.
There’s another video on a different website where rather than covering the news, they cover the high school football careers of the boys. They gloss over the fact that one boy has been charged with EIGHT criminal counts but really want to make sure you know he was a star athlete. In fact, every single article I was able to find talked about the boys playing football. One even had their stats posted, because obviously that’s the most important thing we’ve got to talk about here. The “these are football players, they’re good boys, they’d never do something like that” attitude is rampant in every article. And that’s some bullshit.
I feel like I’ve read about this case before. This isn’t the first time high school (or even college) football players have violated young women and expected not to be punished for it. This isn’t the first time the media has covered a rape leading not with the victims, but with the tragic wasted potential of the accused rapists. (Steubenville, Ohio, anyone?)
The media needs to stop putting the athletic careers of the boys above the basic human rights of the young women being raped and humiliated. No one is talking about those women who so desperately need to be talked about. We know nothing about them, but I can tell you what football position the boys play with pretty minimal searching. If we do hear anything about these girls, it’s generally something pretty awful, like “they deserved it” or were “asking for it” or are straight up lying about it for “attention”. Yet, we’re expected to feel sorry for these boys who made a choice to commit a crime at the expense of another human being.
We all need to be more responsible in the way we handle crimes like this. No more sexualizing the rape of women, especially teenagers. No more pitying boys or men who make conscious decisions to harm another person for their own enjoyment. No more clearly biased news coverage just because the boys are athletes. Let’s be rational, let’s be fair, and lets remember that victim blaming never got anyone anywhere.