<p>No, the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of those who violated her, took pictures, and humiliated her. No one else.</p>
<p>Ugh. It is EXACTLY statements like that that make women afraid to come forward and allows bystanders to just stand by and watch.</p>
<p>Our local flagship U has gotten several “star” athletes with criminal misdemeanor convictions. Guess they were willing to take the risk that athletic talent would win out and the athlete would not reoffend in our state and U. Rarely have I ever seen or heard about any of our football team missing any game other than due to health or academics. Don’t believe they all have halos.</p>
<p>hops - HS and college athletes sign statements saying they will not drink. IF they are held accountable, great! I have no problem with non-athletes being held to the rules too. My comment was that athletes - in several situations of which I have direct knowledge - get a pass because they are wanted on the court, rink, field, etc. Also the school has an incentive to keep problematic behavior (underage drinking, sexual assault, whatever) quiet which is hard to do when a visible athlete is sitting out. I applaud schools that enforce the rules on everyone. I speak from experience as both a high school and college D-I athlete as well as a high school and college athlete parent.</p>
<p>Anonymous definitely picked a noble cause, but I think they had a special place in their heart for a case like this one. Anonymous is made up of computer savvy/more intellectual/nerdier guys, and the rapists in the video were a composite of every dumb jock the anonymous types had to deal with in high school. Seeing them get away with rape wasn’t something anonymous had any interest in, and seeing all the sports fans in the town apologizing for them was disheartening.</p>
<p>In any case it appears she may have been drugged. There was NO hero or heroine here. No one who took the path to protect the vulnerable woman from harm. What happened to the females at the party? Why did they abandon her? Why didn’t they step in? Were they afraid? Was this business as usual? It really seems that the behavior was more commonplace to those folks than to most of us parents.</p>
<p>jonri, Thank you for the excellent summary. Alexandra Goddard does appear to be the hero of this saga, and apparently the kids had no privacy settings on their social media content.</p>
<p>Not sure if this is changing the subject, but I wonder how much of the callousness exhibited by these kids is due to open access hard core porn on the internet. Perhaps that’s a red herring, along the lines of blaming violent video games for desensitization to gun violence. And these incidents have been happening since before the days of internet porn. It’s just hard not to try to grasp at something to explain how so many stood by and did nothing.</p>
<p>Looks like I got one thing wrong.</p>
<p>Anonymous posted the Nodi video, not Goddard. It was on youtube though, so no hacking involved.</p>
<p>Plenty of young girls today are happily objectifying themselves by what they do, say, and wear and their mothers are doing nothing to stop them. Some don’t like it and are a little concerned, but are much more concerned that their D won’t be popular if she doesn’t dress seductively and attend those co-ed sleepovers/all-night parties (orgies). Worse, some moms are into the “cougar” scene themselves and want to share dating talk with their teen daughters. They are delighted that their daughters are viewed as “hot.” Some moms live vicariously through the exploits of their D’s. It’s sick. When my D went to junior prom, I was the only parent in my D’s limo group who did not allow my D to sleep over after prom in a mixed group (and there was going to be alcohol there to boot). Parents are too permissive.</p>
<p>None of the above excuses the boys. But the problem is societal.</p>
<p>A bit of a tangent…does it seem that young people are more cruel to each other than they used to be back in the day? Or do we just hear about it more because of social media? My high school/college crowd engaged in plenty of excessive drinking. People puked, people passed out, people blacked out etc. I don’t ever remember someone taking advantage of a passed out girl. I remember people helping severely inebriated people back to their rooms and sitting up with them to make sure they were safe. (Hopefully I’m not engaged in euphoric recall here.) Now you hear about people messing with passed out people, doing humiliating things to them and then posting the photos online. Try googling “pictures of passed out people”. What’s with inflicting humiliation on one’s friends?</p>
<p>I know a dean of students at a LAC. He’s really taken aback by how college students treat their fellows when they’re intoxicated. ie they leave their passed out “friends” out in the elements, in stairwells, etc. all alone. It is very disturbing to him to see the lack of humanity and responsibility shown by his very entitled students. His college has made a concerted effort to have students watch out for each others’ welfare when drinking.</p>
<p>(To be clear, I’m not equating having one’s face written on with a sharpie to being raped.)</p>
<p>^ I agree. The camera phones made the difference, I think.</p>
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<p>It’s all over TV and in pageants and such. My sisters went with one of their friends to a pageant this weekend for 4 year olds! And some of the pictures I saw of these little girls on Facebook was just disgusting. No need for it!</p>
<p>Obviously, I got way too interested in this case.</p>
<p>The prosecutor is saying that Anonymous’s actions almost caused the girl to back out of pressing charges.</p>
<p>Fox News published her first name—actually it didn’t bleep the name when the defendants said it. Other news sources did.</p>
<p>Apparently, the sheriff is now investigating death threats against her, made after the verdict came down.[Police</a> Probe Death Threats Against Steubenville Rape Victim « CBS Pittsburgh](<a href=“http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/03/18/police-probe-death-threats-against-steubenville-rape-victim/]Police”>Teens Arrested For Death Threats Against Steubenville Rape Victim - CBS Pittsburgh)</p>
<p>I know there are some knuckleheads blaming the victim and minimizing the actions of the guilty, but there is no shortage of media shaming aimed at Steubenville–and rightly so. Check out this link to a deadspin article about Coach Reno:</p>
<p>[Why</a> Does Steubenville’s Football Coach Still Have His Job?](<a href=“http://deadspin.com/why-does-steubenvilles-football-coach-still-have-his-j-455800918]Why”>Why Does Steubenville's Football Coach Still Have His Job?)</p>
<p>We do hear about it more, but I’d guess the intrusion of social media has a tendency to convert people into the “bystander” mode which has been demonstrated in studies to be less caring and less involved in helping others. My guess is the recording makes the recorder and those around part of the larger crowd “watching” and that turns them into bystanders in the social science sense. So without a phone recording, it may have been more likely someone would have stopped it. But we can’t know in a specific situation what would have happened because social science is statistical.</p>
<p>Slight tangent - but have you been reading about the latest sexting case - this one out of Ridgewood NJ:</p>
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<p>This incident is sexting and not assault - but I think it adds to the picture that teens are practicing some very risky sexual behaviors and the parents have no idea. I don’t know what these young girls are thinking - or not thinking - when they send nude pictures of themselves out like this.</p>
<p>As the mother of a teenaged boy, I would be grief stricken if my son ever did anything like this. It would absolutely kill me to see him hauled away in handcuffs. We have taught him what is right in an ongoing dialogue all of his life. He has sisters, so he knows how to respect women. If (God forbid) he ever did the wrong thing, it wouldn’t be because he wasn’t parented appropriately. And, again, I don’t think I could bear it.</p>
<p>We have a relative who has three kids. Fine, normal, middle class people. Involved parents, no poverty, no deprivation or abuse. Smart kids. Two of the kids are just great kids, but the third went wrong somewhere in high school and, despite his parents’s best efforts, he did an absolutely terrible thing and went to jail. His parents never excused his behavior, never pretended that he hadn’t done it. They knew he was guilty, but his mother has aged decades since this all happened. I would never, ever walk in her shoes and I would never judge her. But if (God forbid) my son ever did the wrong thing, I would not turn my back on him, either.</p>
<p>There was recently a case in my area where a girl was treated badly in a sexual manner by members of the (you guessed it) football team. She jumped in front of a train and died. Absolutely tragic. The investigation is ongoing.</p>
<p>From Slate–
“It’s important for those covering the case to avoid glamorizing two boys who raped a girl and then bragged about it. Sadly, CNN utterly failed on this front, going straight for the “tragic hero” instead of “violent criminal” angle.”</p>
<p>I have to agree after watching the video–
[The</a> Steubenville rapists are anti-social criminals, not promising young men.](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/03/18/the_steubenville_rapists_are_anti_social_criminals_not_promising_young_men.html]The”>The Steubenville rapists are anti-social criminals, not promising young men.)</p>
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<p>This is all irrelevant to this case and shows an appalling lack of proportionality in terms of perspective. </p>
<p>Regardless of how irresponsible, imprudent, or naive someone is…it does not justify or have any bearing on the fact rapists chose to rape him/her. Not one iota.</p>
<p>Even bringing it up in cases like this is not only going to discourage rape victims from coming forward, it takes away too much attention from where the responsibility lies…100% with the ones committing the rape. </p>
<p>It also gives them future openings to commit more violent felonies which may jeopardize the safety of the greater public. </p>
<p>Bringing up anything else will only provide some succor to those criminals and their sympathizers…succor they don’t deserve.</p>
<p>The victim blaming is stunning. Why not blame all women for having vaginas in the first place? Men simply can not be expected to control themselves.</p>