In March, the trial of two rapists caught national attention. Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were found guilty of raping a 16-year-old girl. Only one among thousands of rape cases each year, the Steubenville, Ohio incident attracted national attention due to the controversial involvement of social media. Subsequent CNN coverage of the trial was criticized for sympathizing with the rapists and ignited a frenzy of news and social media buzz.
The Steubenville trial, in addition to similar incidents at Connecticut’s Torrington High School and California’s Saratoga High School, revealed what many believe to be a key social issue known as “rape culture.” As junior Julia Murray defined it, “In our everyday lives, rape is sort of normalized… to see women as sluts on a regular basis, to call people sluts colloquially, like your friends.”
On Friday, May 10, Murray and eight other members of the Aragon community participated in a panel discussion about rape hosted by the Outlook. The objective of the panel was defining “consent,” an often ambiguous concept upon which an accusation of rape is reliant. The discussion utilized case studies to frame the issue of consent around media coverage of rape, rape culture, and changing social attitudes.
Panelists agreed that the phenomenon of rape culture was an existing problem. Regarding the Steubenville case, AP Psychology teacher Carlo Corti said, “People [were] passing out pictures of passed out unconscious girls being sexually assaulted, and numerous people [saw] them before they [were] reported. That’s the best evidence we have that rape culture exists, that we’re actually ok with hearing about it but doing nothing about it repeatedly.”
This recurring phenomenon may be due to what psychologists call the “bystander effect.” According to this theory, the greater the number of bystanders who witness a crime, the lower the likelihood that one of them will help.
However, the issue of responsibility is additionally complicated by legal ambiguities. The ability to give consent varies in cases involving alcohol and underage youth, and states maintain different ages of consent. Junior Albert Boe said, “I feel that it’s really confusing and that a lot of people don’t understand the consent laws because [they are] so broad, and there are so many numbers involved that statutory rape gets very confusing.”
Liz Siliato, the school safety advocate, added, “I think with statutory rape, the idea is to protect people who are still developing and unable to understand what consent is, so it is a protective thing and a necessary one when you talk about the potential age gaps between adults and young people.”
When alcohol is involved, this “protective” philosophy also applies; an inebriated person cannot give consent. However, in the event that two people having sex are both inebriated, it is up to an individual jury to determine culpability. In effect, the issue of consent is often confounded by social stereotypes, misconceptions, and expectations.
Referring to a hypothetical case wherein both minors are intoxicated, sophomore Ben Maisonpierre said, “The male can’t give consent, but [he is] supposed to control [himself]. That seems to be a bit of a contradiction.”
Siliato suggested that this stems from gender role stereotypes. She explained, “The responsibility of initiating sexual contact kind of lies with men, or that’s kind of the stereotype: that men are supposed to pursue women, that men always want to say yes, and that women, in a sense, shouldn’t or can’t do that because then they’re a ‘whore’ or they’re ‘easy.’”
Because of this double standard, Corti noted, steps toward intimacy are often modeled by a fear of rejection rather than a pursuit of consent. Corti said, “What’s the default if nothing is said? … ‘she didn’t say anything, she was obviously fine with it’ …for most guys, that’s [the] default mentality.”
However, he did add, “They’re going to put it on the person they’re making their move on to tell them when to stop, [but] many men—I would like to think most men—will stop when told ‘no.’”
Corti also noted that even in the case of willing adults, consent in itself is loosely defined. He said, “Is consent saying yes, or is it not saying no? I mean the idea of someone not verbalizing openly that they’re uncomfortable with something makes every accusation more difficult… ‘Yes or no.’ If one of those words isn’t said, there’s a lot of grey area.”
Siliato suggested that sexual partners should establish consent clearly and definitively before each act. She said, “One time is not blanket consent.”
But the controversy surrounding consent goes further than a verbal “yes” or “no.” This is perhaps best illustrated by the Torrington case: following the rape of two middle school girls, local teens took to social media, posting tweets such as, “Young girls acting like whores there’s no punishment for that… young men acting like boys is a sentence” and “Statutory rape is a victimless crime.”
This tendency to believe that a victim’s disposition, clothing, or other nonverbal cues qualify as “consent” can be applied to a broader context. Psychologists attribute it to the “just-world hypothesis,” which speculates why and how victimization occurs. Corti explained, “I think the problem is that we want the world to be just. We don’t want to believe that people just do bad things or do evil things. There must be a reason for it, so when someone’s assaulted, we look for the easiest reason that can be… [such as] how that girl was acting or… how that boy was acting before the assault happened.”
Misperceptions also exacerbate “rape culture.” For example, the panelists noted that media had created an unrealistic visual for sex. Senior Sam Alavi said, “In all the movies, when people are having sex, nobody has that conversation, nobody puts on a condom… what if we changed it so that asking for consent was the norm, or sexy, or cool?”
Indeed, change was a theme for several of the panelists, many of whom believed that sparking discussion was important but difficult with the current status quo regarding rape. Junior Nicole Sanchez said, “We don’t talk about it very much in class—sex as a topic in general. It’s always about drugs or violence or bullying, but rape has never been something that’s come up in class.”
Corti offered the perspective of a teacher and parent. “There’s an inherent discomfort adults have with talking to students about anything of sexual nature… You start talking about sex, students no longer make eye contact. Everyone’s uncomfortable. The teacher’s clearly uncomfortable,” he said.
The panelists did note, however, that the existing discussion of rape is too often misled. Lately, mainstream media has received criticism for its coverage.
Referring to the Steubenville case, Sophomore Dawit Bairu said, “CNN, they sort of made it seem as if the boys had their futures taken away from them. It wasn’t that; it was more that they had every single opportunity to not do what they did. They threw their own futures away.”
For Maisonpierre, the media’s coverage was far from ideal by failing to remain neutral. “They are there to make money. They will show whatever sells, and so in this case, it’s partly entertainment value, and it’s reflective of their viewers—or what their viewers want,” he said.
Still, others like Alavi saw the reaction to Steubenville as an opportunity for transition. She said, “I think those images that were all over Facebook that were about all the different quotes [from] different news stations… really started the conversation about how we portray rape and rape culture in the media, so I think there were benefits to it.”
During STAR testing week, all Aragon seniors were required to attend a sequence of three morning lectures, one of which addressed general health and sexual health. Senior teachers were also prompted to offer their students a chance to submit questions to the presenters beforehand.
Senior Lindsey Chen praised the discussion but noted that talking to second semester seniors may not be an effective approach. However, she did say, “This is something that happens in high school—even in middle school. We should be vocal about it now.”
