Submitted By Lawrence Rafferty, (rafflaw), Guest Blogger
I actually thought that I had misread the article when I first read it. It described the horrific gang rape of an 11-year-old in the Texas town of Cleveland. Eighteen young men and teenagers have been charged with the rape that is alleged to have started in a house and eventually moved to a deserted trailer nearby. I am sure that this kind of vicious crime occurs all too often in our country, but there is one thing that makes this crime a little different. Many of the townspeople are blaming the eleven year old girl for her own gang rape!
“The video led the police to an abandoned trailer, more evidence and, eventually, to a roundup over the last month of 18 young men and teenage boys on charges of participating in the gang rape of an 11-year-old girl in the abandoned trailer home, the authorities said. Five suspects are students at Cleveland High School, including two members of the basketball team. Another is the 21-year-old son of a school board member. A few of the others have criminal records, from selling drugs to robbery and, in one case, manslaughter. The suspects range in age from middle schoolers to a 27-year-old. The case has rocked this East Texas community to its core and left many residents in the working-class neighborhood where the attack took place with unanswered questions. Among them is, if the allegations are proved, how could their young men have been drawn into such an act? “ New York Times How can a newspaper like the New York Times ask the question “…how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?” when the victim is an eleven year old girl?
Has society returned to the day that a female victim cannot say No to forced sex? Have we returned to the day when an 11-year-old girl is berated in public forums for allegedly enticing these adults and teenagers into threatening to harm the young girl if she didn’t have sex with them? “A meeting Thursday night that was billed as a way to discuss concerns some have about the investigation into a series of alleged sexual assaults on an 11-year-old girl turned into a forum that many used to blame the girl police contend is the victim of heinous attacks. Many who attended the meeting said they supported the group of men and boys who have been charged in the case. Supporters didn’t claim that the men and boys did not have sex with the young girl; instead they blamed the girl for the way she dressed or claimed she must have lied about her age — accusations that have drawn strong responses from those who note an 11-year-old cannot consent to sex and that it doesn’t matter how she was dressed.” Houston Chronicle
The fact that an 11-year-old girl was victimized had no effect on many in the crowd. Lost in their attack on her was the legal issued raised above. A minor cannot consent to sex and her mode of dress is irrelevant to the crimes alleged against these 18 different students and adults. How can a society even suggest that a young girl can consent to anything, let alone forced sex with at least 18 different individuals? One writer, quoting a definition of rape culture from the book, Transforming a Rape Culture,(WomenandChildrenFirst) suggests that we are fostering a new rape culture in America that actually encourages this kind of behavior and violence against women and in this case young girls. “A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.” ShakespeareSister
I am not sure that we have ever gotten past the day when women are blamed for being raped by their attackers. If we have, this incident and the town’s reaction to it indicate that we are returning to a violent past or creating a new rape culture. Could there be a connection to this “rape culture” and the War on Women that we have highlighted in past articles?
I guess when the pedophiles end up in prison, their prison rapists can blame them for their fates.
Lotta,
Great link! I hope they have a tough battle to defend these alleged creeps.
“Has society returned to the day that a female victim cannot say No to forced sex?”
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Please note the following changes enacted to the requirements of a civil society;
“Has society returned to the day that a female victim cannot say No?”
but then a civil and just society would be as follows (but methinks we are not yet in the presence of the reciprocal mindset necessary to experience the riches contained therein…);
“Has society returned to the day that a female cannot say?”
Pedophiles are scum. They should all do time.
Apparently some of the defendants have legal counsel that doesn’t seem quite at the top of his game:
“Attorney: Suspects knew rape victim was 11”
“Defending Cleveland clients will be ‘difficult,’ he admits on talk show
Attorney James D. Evans III, hired to defend some of the 18 suspects accused of gang-raping an 11-year-old girl in Cleveland, said on a radio talk show program that those participating were “absolutely” aware of the girl’s age.
Evans could not be reached Friday for comment about his remarks to San Francisco Bay Area’s KGO talk-show host Gil Gross.
But on the recorded broadcast Thursday, Gross asked Evans: “But what is going to be your defense for your clients for having sex with an 11-year-old girl? How many of them knew? … It was a small town … knew her to be in middle school. So there was no doubt about her age?”
To which Evans clearly answered, “Absolutely not. There was no doubt about her age.” ”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7468724.html
Frank,
I did miss the homor in pete’s comment. Thanks for the correction.
Woosty,
It couldn’t have been the men who are responsible for this heinous act, could it? I hope these families have deep pockets for the victims sake. Criminal penalties won’t be enough to salve this wound.
“Could there be a connection to this “rape culture” and the War on Women that we have highlighted in past articles? “~Lawrence Rafferty
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ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!………ya think?
‘… how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?’
and,
“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”
and,
“It’s devastating, and it’s really tearing our community apart,” she said. “I really wish that this could end in a better light.” ~www.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/us/09assault.html?_r=2&hpl
that filthy little Jezebel…
I think Pete was speaking in acid humor – as if 13 would have made it OK.
Despite all the progress we have made as a species we still have so very far to go, particularly when it comes to human sexuality. I wish it were only third world cesspools like Texas of Saudi Arabia that thought like this but it happens in decent places too.
Pete,
Your question is irrelevant because an 11 year old child cannot consent to sex. It was a brutal gang rape by at least 18 individuals.
DG,
You are correct that the logic does not compute.
According to the horrifying non-logic that she was the culprit here because she dressed a certain way and claimed to be older…any 11 yr old boy in fatigues who is playing soldier is responsible for any war crimes committed against him.
Let’s not try to understand these men. Let’s not attempt to dissect the culture that produced and protects them. Let’s simply rent a large bulldozer and have at ’em …
As I understand what Marnie is saying….that parts of the country and maybe most of it now live in an eternal deception…they are taught this cradle to grave and thats just the way it is and no one has the ability to change it….those that recognize the inherent wrongness of these conducts move…
“she lied about her age”
did she say she was thirteen?
Marnie,
I agree with the big lie theory, I am not so sure about the first part.
rafflaw 1, March 12, 2011 at 6:11 pm
AY,
What are they teaching them in Texas these days??
It is not being taught it is the way it always has been in rural conservative Christian societies. Eve was a bitch and the Virgin Mary was a slut therefore all women are bitches and sluts and therefore always are \gbuility of the sin of being borne femal and therfore always deserving of abuse.
It is exactly the same thing as driving while Black.
It is exactly the same thing as Goebbels’ rule of repeating a lie until it becomes a truth. In a relatively closed society of males the repeated lie that all women ask for it or deserve it or that all males have a right to it is believed as being a fact.
puzzling,
If that statement is correct, there should be no selective prosecution, but that is no defense to rape of an 11 year old. Plus, that Quanell X is a strange bird. He was the one who was leading the town forum on the rapes and asking for money for the defense of the alleged perps.
Rafflaw,
Rafflaw – you raise a very disturbing point, but I think the race aspects of this story are likely to become the most prominent. From ABC:
AY,
What are they teaching them in Texas these days??
Well said Canadian. It may just be a symptom of a greater problem.
It’s beginning to look like American lawmakers are so threatened by the limited progress that woman have made in the past century that they are intent on pushing them back to non-citizin status.
Absolutely disguisting that any female, let alone an 11-year old girl, would be subjected to 1st a brutal attack by a group of men…and then a public attack by the community in which she lives. Shame on you Cleveland, Texas!
This is sickening…Cleveland is north of Houston….just barely in East or what is called East Texas….it is really part of the Texas coastal plains… enough said….