Texas gang rape: a community story

[XanaDUer]

SNIP - Let me explain why a gang rape story could pull me from what is, unarguably, one of the most important news stories right now (Libya): news stories on rape remind me that women are habitually targeted for interpersonal violence that seeks to deny their human dignity. News stories on rape remind me that it could next be me, my sister, my niece, the boy up the street, a man living on the streets, or one of my college students.

So, an article reporting that adults could actually say publicly, to reporters no less, that the blame for gang rape lies with an 11-year-old girl tells me that it’s the community’s fault the girl was gang raped. In other words, it’s whole communities that put us at risk, make us vulnerable to sexual violence.

Readers learn from the Times article that this town allows the sexualizing of young girls and abides, if not encourages, sexual violence by men. Doesn’t this help us understand the situation better? Especially when a woman who knows some of the defendants says, “It’s just destroyed our community. These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/north-of-center/35136/texas-gang-rape-a-community-story

[niyad]

1. it has absolutely disgusted me that there are people who can blame this child, instead of the men

and boys who perpetrated this horrendous crime.

[LiberalLoner]

3. Yes, it is awful, but does not surprise me at all. That's the world we women live in. It

is part of the reason I chose not to have children. I guess it was my way of protesting the fact that I was raped repeatedly as a child. I did not want to bring another soul into a world I view as beyond repair and beyond tolerating. A world that truly, truly is not worth living in.

[niyad]

7. didn't surprise me either.

I am so very sorry for what happened to you as a child.

[LiberalLoner]

9. Thank you.

[XanaDUer]

16. So sorry

:hug:

[freshwest]

4. Medieval.

[Canuckistanian]

2. Those poor boys

I hope they find comfort. In a jail cell.

[PDJane]

5. It means that, in that community as so many others,

If the girl doesn't meet expectations of behaviour, including silence after rape, it's her fault for not being what she should be.

The only way to escape that is to leave. Been there, done that, have all the emotional scars to prove it.

[LiberalLoner]

6. I'm sorry you carry the same scars I carry. I know it hurts. But I have to wonder,

where you can move to to get away from it. Because as far as I can tell, there is no place on earth not infected with the virus. No safe place, no place where you don't pay a heavy price for having been born with the wrong set of genitalia.

[PDJane]

17. That's quite true,

But it is also true that the larger the population centre, the easier it is to avoid the contagion. It's not a perfect solution, but it does help.

[LiberalLoner]

8. The girl will carry the scars from this the rest of her life, I guarantee it, therapy or not she

will never be free of the pain and shame and anger. Never. Not for one minute, unless she turns to booze or other drugs to blot out her consciousness.

There was a brilliant episode on "Battlestar Galactica" that really got to me.

One of the human/robot hybrid types was captured by a ship and crew and they put her in a room and abused her. Raped her repeatedly with lots of different men, kicked her, spit on her, verbally abused her, made her life a living hell in every way.

Then a man who had been in love with a different human/robot but of the same model (so the abused one looked just like the one he loved so much) came in and gave kindness to her, offered her food, tried to help her.

The first thing she said to him was a desperate plea - "Please kill me. Kill me, kill me, kill me. Let me die."

I burst into tears immediately upon seeing that and collapsed on the floor curled up and biting my forearm so hard it brought blood out. Freaked my husband out, he wondered if he needed to get some emergency medical help for me.

The thing was, I understood her plea. There was not one day looking back on my life in my growing up years or twenties or thirties where I did not fantasize about suicide. Made a few attempts over the years too. I understood where she was coming from. And to see my "secret" so to speak right there on the screen really got to me.

I understood it too - nodded my head, thinking, "I know, I know, I know" when she chose to use the nuclear device and to be the one who activated it - thereby committing suicide (but for a cause.) She cradled that bomb as the timer ticked down to the end and looked so content and at peace.

[Name removed]

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[hayu_lol]

12. The barbarians are still with us.

This was worse(if anything could be)than the last reported gang rape following that school dance. Maybe it is time to rethink the death penalty--these guys will probably get little more than slaps on the wrist. Wouldn't help this little girl and her experience but these creeps would never manage another episode.

[LiberalLoner]

14. Wouldn't that be awesome? I'd love to see each and every child molestor killed, or

at the very least have their genitalia cut off. That would please me immensely. :) It will never happen of course.

[uppityperson]

18. What happened to you was...I have no words bad enough.

however, having been raped also, I am glad I was not killed. Yes, it has affected me throughout my life, but still I am glad I am alive. I wish peace for you and for all who have been raped and for the men who rape? I wish them hell. For men in general, do not rape.

For men in general, if you see such a thing happening, stop it. It may be difficult to go against the flow, to speak and act out against the gang but seriously, SERIOUSLY, it will be so much less difficult than what the girl or woman has to go through.

[midnight]

11. I had to double check which community this happened in.

As I read it sounded like the middle east..... Where they stone women to death for being rapped...

[Liberal_in_LA]

13. hopefully the boys 'will have to live with it" in jail n/t

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

15. A friend in Houston is foaming at the mouth over this story,

Since the freaks who are being quoted as representatives of the "black community" are a bunch of Nation of Islam crackpots led by a local media whore (Mr. Quanell X) who would trample his own mother to death to get to the TV cameras to scream any nonsense that will get him on TV.

No normal adult is justifying this and the people who are probably have bullshit to share on all sorts of issues.

[BlancheSplanchnik]

19. Women's suffering Doesn't Matter.

That's the message in this story.

It's a message we get to see before our faces every fucking day. We're relentlessly dehumanized; either we're T&A, or Fruitful Uteri--Servants to The Family.

and Capitalism depends on us.

(But doesn't respect us in the morning!)

The book "Our Guys: The Glen Ridge Rape and the Secret Life of the Perfect Suburb " reports the story of a New Jersey town that turned its collective back on a mentally disabled young woman gang raped by a group of Town Jocks, in the 80's or 90's I think.

Amazon.com Review
Leslie, a sweet-natured young woman with the mental age of an 8-year-old, just wanted to be friends with the high school football stars. When they invited her down into the basement rec room of a suburban home, she jumped with joy at being included. The young men raped her--with a baseball bat and a broomstick. In this vividly detailed book, Bernard Lefkowitz brings us into the daily life of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the hometown of Tom Cruise. It's an affluent white community that values propriety, order, discretion, continuity, and a fantasy of the gentleman-athlete. Lefkowitz writes of the boys who raped Leslie: "'These Glen Ridge kids, they were pure gold, every mother's dream, every father's pride. They were not only Glen Ridge's finest, but in their perfection they belonged to all of us. They were Our Guys." What's ultimately most shocking about this crime is how ordinary it was, how predictable--how in one way or another it's happening now, all across America.
.....................................................................

The reputations of the football team members were more important. Those promising young men had a future!

[XanaDUer]

20. My mom used to say that, if every women on Earth stopped working

one day, everything would screech to a halt.