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

[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."