Steubenville

[capnzebbie]

Steubenville football players found guilty

At one point of the night of the incident, Westlake, who was sober, determined that his friend Mark Cole was too drunk to make a 10-minute drive home. At first, Cole refused to turn over his keys, claiming he could operate his Volkswagen Jetta just fine. Westlake was undeterred, though, eventually "tricking" Cole by waiting for him to relax and then forcibly seizing the keys.

Yet maybe a half-hour later, Westlake walked in on the girl, sprawled out naked in the middle of a basement floor. To her side was Mays, exposed and slapping his penis on the girl's hip. Behind her was Richmond, who, Westlake said, was violating her with two fingers.

Westlake said goodbye to the guys and kept walking. A good friend with his eye on the safety of others just minutes before was suddenly unaware or unsure of what to do – or simply uncaring enough to do anything at all.

"Something has gotten in there that said, 'OK, we need to prevent drinking and driving,' " Hanna said. "We need to take it to that level with preventing sexual assault."

I see public service ads about preventing drinking and driving ALL THE TIME. I have NEVER seen a public service announcement about preventing sexual assault. That needs to change.

Comments

[roxymissrose.livejournal.com]

There's responsibility to be shared all around here, but I can't help feeling that the parents of these kids--all of these kids--need to step up.

[capnzebbie.livejournal.com]

I read that article, and that's the first time I got an in-depth perspective on the community where this happened. Useless parents, a town full of enablers, football players given carte blanche to do whatever they want, liquor stores and bars providing them with alcohol--I expect more indictments coming from this situation.

And I would like to see PSAs all over the place with messages like, "Hey, rape isn't cool," or "This is the definition of rape...."

There was a woman on msnbc yesterday who said a simple and profound thing: "Fewer women would be raped by men if fewer men would rape women."

[myownghost.livejournal.com]

I was telling my younger son just this afternoon that I have seen an appalling lowering of tone among young people since I was a girl. There's online porn now that features girls and women being violated, with awful crudity of language and degrading name-calling, and you know these kids were exposed to that stuff. How can it not persuade them that girls are somehow not fully human and therefore to be treated like objects for their own gratification and the amusement of their acquaintances?

[N.B.: This in no way exonerates those boys. I see a societal trend, though, and think it explains a lot.]

I'm glad Ohio authorities are looking into the way the coach knew about the rape tweets but kept it all under wraps. He should've reported them quick as quick. I mentioned to my son that coach at Penn State in passing, how one of the junior coaches had walked in on him showering with an underage boy, but nothing was done by the upper levels at the uni when the junior coach mentioned it to them. No one went to the police. I don't understand this kind of thinking.

[capnzebbie.livejournal.com]

I agree with you regarding the changes since we were younger. People just don't seem to know what is considered appropriate behavior.

Not just in the way young people interact, but also the fact that the parents were useless, the liquor stores and bars provided these children with alcohol, and everyone in town gave these boys free reign.

re Penn State, I'm just glad this sort of thing is coming out in public now--Penn State and the abuse issues in the Catholic Church. That sort of thing has been going on forever with no one coming forward to speak out about it. You can't fix something if you don't know it's there.