Slut Shaming, pt 1: Rape

What does a guy have to say about the subject of slut-shaming? My own message is that women as well as men engage in it, and I think in about equal numbers. Yes, I think it's possible that even though it comes down preponderantly on females, I believe other females are just as likely to be slut-shame as males are.

 Especially for adolescents, "slut" is a smear used to knock somebody off the status ladder. However, they do it with a sense of justice that is pretty much assented to by adults. It's a dynamic that has a lot in common with bullying, which with I have a lot of experience, on the receiving end. One of my old observations about bullying is that often the adults signal, consciously or not, who gets bullied. Children try to aim their aggression at kids whose oppression make the instigators feel secure and justified.  This is why Conservative Christians have said that anti-bullying campaigns are actually promoting the "gay agenda." They are admitting that they depend on bullying to instill homophobia in kids. Having gone to Catholic schools in the '70s, I could attest that the most damaging thing you could be called was "fag," or some variant. Second worst was n*gg*r-lover. And no, there were no African-Americans at my grade school and very few at my high school. Bullying was a means to indoctrinate both homophobia and racism. The latter definitely wasn't part of the Catholic teaching, in fact, I've probably mentioned before, the nuns did their level best to stamp it out in the students. Unfortunately, the racism was endorsed by the parents, and their sway won out. For homosexuality, though, the parents and the church agreed.




I'm sure these labels had much the same social effect as calling a female a slut still has. It drops you very low in status. At any age in life if people see you as having negative status, they will never help you. They do not even think they owe you honesty. They will both lie to you and about you. Once a female is labeled a slut, the rumor-mill will hang all kinds of baseless scandals on her.

Some women are pushing back against this engaging in "Slut-Walks" to protest. However, I think a closer look might show that even those women are divided on it. Some oppose it with the presumption that the term is usually used falsely or unjustly (something I'll discuss soon), and yes, as I stated above, people will lie; they will pin any sex act on a female with that label.

Other women at the marches, however, don't think a woman's sexual decisions should be a source of shame as long as the sex is consensual. I find this latter one to be more realistic and honorable. The question shouldn't be whether the term is used properly. You might as well ask whether the word n*gg*r was used properly. We should ask ourselves why we would use the term as an insult at all. A woman's sexual choices shouldn't have penalties.

This might not go over well with adolescents, Slut-shaming is related to bullying and among adolescents, it's rampant. To adolescent girls, a slut is somebody who could steal their boyfriends, or at least cause them to lapse and lose respectability. Early adolescents are just beginning to deal with feelings of sexual envy and jealousy. They want to "kill off" any threat to their relationships. This works out for the males, who happily can have sex and then use the "slut" label to undercut a girl's status. Therefore, it frees a male from to keeping any ties to or reciprocation with her. Nobody will blame him if he turns on her, and whenever he doesn't, she'll tend to feel over-thankful for it.

In my mid-20s and early-30s, I went out with a woman who would call me a slut whenever we started to have sex. It seemed like dirty talk at the time, quite sexy, but I suspected that she had to free herself from that label hanging over her before she could enjoy sex. She had to shift "the blame," if that's the correct word, to me. The word obviously had a powerful sway over her more than a decade out of high school. As an adult, she still felt oppressed by it. 

It isn't just method of psychological restraint. Slut-shaming has an even more insidious dynamic when it comes to rape. Maybe some people reading this haven't heard of the Steubenville (Ohio) High School rape case. A horrid story, and one where slut shaming plays a prominent part. This crime was committed by several members of  the Steubenville HS football team, specifically, a clique within who-- even before this act-- were called "The Rape Crew." Here's the story as told at that link:

On August 27, 2012 two members of the Big Red High School football team in Steubenville, Ohio – USA were arrested and charged with the rape and kidnapping of an out of town 16 year old girl that took place on August 11th. At the time of this gang rape, the girl was intoxicated and unconscious. The victim had been intentionally drugged with a “date rape” intoxicant. She was photographed and video was taken of her in this condition, and there is evidence that she was hauled in a comatose state to multiple parties – and almost certainly raped by more members of the local high school football team than just the two players who currently stand charged. There is even evidence that she was urinated upon during this hideous assault.

Despite all this, it looked as though a town rife with corruption, cronyism, illegal gambling and fixated upon their star high school football team (a major economic revenue engine) were prepared to orchestrate a major cover-up in order to sweep the entire affair under the rug. As this disclosure will document, this cover-up was perpetrated by people in the high school administration, local government and law enforcement.

Details of the story continue at the bottom:

After being convinced, with some amount of coaxing – to attend the parties that night with the “Rape Crew” by by Mark Cole’s girlfriend Santoro, Jane Doe was picked up at a volley ball team party she was attending in the early evening of August 11th and transported in a vehicle with Richmond, Mays and Cole in it. Jane Doe was administered a “date rape” drug snuck into her drink almost immediately, possibly while still in the vehicle enroute to the nights “festivities”. In any case, she has no memories after being picked up. The first party of the night was at the home of Assistant Coach Rick Cameletti, where Michael Nodianos, Charlie Keenan, Cody Saltsman, and Anthony Craig were already engaged in heavy drinking and drug use. At this location Jane Doe was raped multiple times by Richmond and Mays and at least two other assailants from the “Rape Crew”. At that point the “party” went on the move. They first stopped at another Assistant Coach’s home, Coach Belerdine. Both Belerdine and his sister were present at this time. Jane Doe was again sexually assaulted at this party. They hit the road again with an unconscious Jane Doe in tow. While en route to Mark Cole’s house, Jane was again raped and sodomized in the back seat of a vehicle – and this was video recorded by Mark Cole who was in the front seat. Her attackers in the car were again Mays and Richmond. Once they arrived at Mark Cole’s house Jane Doe was carried to the basement where she was again raped multiple times by multiple attackers, one of which was Michael Nodianos. Also at the Cole residence, Jane Doe was orally raped by Trent Mays. Finally, having sated themselves and exhausted any further entertainment that Jane Doe could provide for these animals, she was unceremoniously dumped (still unconscious) onto the front lawn of the Cole residence – where at least one member of the “Rape Crew” proceeded to urinate on her. At some point in the early morning hours of August 12th, a still unconscious Jane Doe was transported to her home in West Virginia – where she was deposited on the front lawn of her families home. She was discovered there by her parents at dawn.

These monsters performed this heinous act with both impunity and pride. They took pictures and videos, most of them erased when their coach and the sheriff arrived on the scene for the cover-up. However, at least one video did survive, and we owe Anonymous and their Knight Sec faction for releasing it:

Warning: NSFW and extremely disturbing video.

His justification for his action? She was a slut, she deserved it. To quote:

And here are other examples of how low on the status scale he thinks sluts are.




And here's what some of the other alleged rapists and close associates say on Twitter and elsewhere:

It seems that many of the adults in Steubenville agree with these assessments. The localleaks files above lays bare the network and machinations used to try to get these guys off the hook, and the people doing it.

The town is said to be divided over whether the "Rape Crew" was at fault, or the victim was! I must be out of step. I would think that nobody would support a bunch of guys known before this incident as "The Rape Crew." I never thought anything like this could be controversial in the 21st century. If the people of Steubenville don't want to be known as the "The Home of the Rape Crew," I would suggest they re-examine their morals.

Slut shaming was so inculcated in these youth's thinking, that they didn't seem to think their actions were illegal. And they proudly mocked her online as though they just did a public service. Did they actually think when they Tweeted about her that most people would agree? Of course, they took videos and pictures to taunt her later, since she obviously wasn't going to have any memory of what they did. To them, it seemed to be something like mischievous justice. The fact that they wore the moniker of  "The Rape Crew" even before this incident, says something.

I owe some people an apology. Before I read about the Steubenville case and the attempt to cover it up, I didn't think there was any such thing as a "rape culture." Now I see that there is one. Though it's not everywhere, and it benefits rapists unequally. The network protecting these guys qualifies as a criminal conspiracy which includes some high-ranking officials in the town and the county. A criminal organization might be exaggerating, but not by much. From now on, whenever I hear about athletes raping a woman, I am going to be on the watch for the Steubenville Network laboring behind the scenes to get the guys off the hook.

For myself, I've always wondered why a woman's sexual choices would be a source of shame at all. People are listening to some anachronistic instinct that is shaped by our culture. However, modern sexual ethics are based more and more on consent. Raping a woman because you have an objection to her sexuality is one of the most hypocritical and inhumane acts.