The girls were not consenting and were not capable of consent.
bengangmo:
While I think I agree with your main point, you are phrasing it very poorly and I can understand people getting upset.
This is an 11 year old girl we are talking about. It is absurd to focus on how she should change her behavior, because it is incredibly easy for adult men to manipulate an 11 year old girl.
Essentially, the questions are the same, but the focus is different. We shouldn’t ask “why was this girl already having sex with adult men”, we should ask “how were adult men already raping this girl and nobody did anything about it.”
We shouldn’t ask “why did she take a ride with a 19 year old”, we should ask “why did a 19 year old take her for a ride and why didn’t anyone find that disturbing.”
We shouldn’t tell her “don’t wear adult clothes and make up and hang out with an older crowd”, we should ask “who/what influenced/manipulated/forced her to wear adult clothes and make up and hang out with this crowd”.
Because she is an 11 year old girl being victimized by adults. That doesn’t make her stupid or reckless. It makes her 11, and them adults.
I don’t doubt that gang rape is less common in the ghetto than other kinds of troubles. But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t connected with the same factors that cause other kinds of crimes, both serious and common.
Not everybody who grows up without a father turns into a rapist. But growing up without a father is one strike against you right from the get-go. And growing up in a neighborhood where it is pretty much the norm to live without the stable, long-term presence of a father or father figure in the home, is another strike.
Not everyone who grows up without a father becomes a rapist, obviously. But it commonly appears in the backgrounds of those who commit serious, violent crimes.
It’s an analogy I’ve used in the past. My grandfather died of lung cancer. He never smoked cigarettes in his life. Does that mean dying of lung cancer isn’t usually associated with smoking? IYSWIM.
Regards,
Shodan
In the scenarios I’ve witnessed in my the local junior high and high schools, the boys are underage, so they also cannot legally consent to sex; therefore, it could be argued that they are just as much being raped by the girls, if not more so since they (the boys) are not getting anything of monetary value out of the sex.
So you were a thief and extortionist, but now just a con woman (fortuneteller) and general scam artist.
What a shame that you won’t be having children…
Well, if I could honestly work in an environment where I didn’t have strange men sticking out their hands at me, I would. If you deny people the right to work honestly, guess, what they turn to crime.
Anyone else getting that feeling like when you are stopped at the top of the rollercoaster, with that seemingly never ending pause before you plunge?
Sorry about that: I was actually referring to Diogenes the Cynic, upon who I bestowed the nickname Doggy Knees many years ago. I apologise for the confusion.
I get that feeling every time ZPG Zealot shows up in a thread.
Except that she was told, repeatedly, that she’d be beaten if she didn’t do exactly what the rapists told her to do. And she had reason to believe that she WOULD be beaten.
And the cops might not have believed her, anyway. It’s her word against the word of several well connected males.
And does it count as a short skirt if I’m wearing leggings with it? What if it’s a leather skirt–does it count as slutty even if it’s knee length? I always want to know what people think qualifies as slutty in terms of clothing choices for women because it’s so different depending on who’s doing the choosing. At the end of the day, let’s face it–who knows?
Usually calls to that effect are anonymous, aren’t they? So they wouldn’t have known she (or anyone) tattled until the cops started making really overt moves. Besides, there’s no fool proof method for stopping every sucky situation other than magic. Yeah, it’s always possible that nobody or not enough people would believe her, but just because that chance exists doesn’t mean we should throw up our arms and not try. Not mentioning anything is guaranteed to make things go downhill, telling somebody only has a chance of making things worse, the rational choice is telling somebody.
It’s been pointed out several times that she was violently raped. I’m over twice this girl’s age, and I don’t think I have the skills to avoid being physically forced to submit.
Am I confused or are you seriously discussing whether the actions of a sexually abused 11 year old girl threatened with (and the victim of) extreme violence were the rational choice in the situation?
That’s why you TEACH THEM WHAT TO DO. It’s the same idea as conditioning soldiers to not hesitate to shoot a human target, or hell, giving kids timed math quizzes so they’re calmer and able to think clearer under test pressure*. Or any number of “just say no” drug PSAs. If you drive the point in early and hard then it increases the chances of them making the rational choice under pressure. That’s not to say she doesn’t have a right to be emotional or act irrationally at ALL, it’s just that if you teach them properly they should find it easier to act rationally, even at a young age. And no, it’s still not a perfect system, but I’m trying to work for a maximum of good situations given the current state of affairs in the world, not make everything perfect.
- No, not the same level of severity at all. Just a similar principle.
You forgot to post any relevance,
She was violently gang raped. There was nothing to teach her.
Well, I have been in situations similiar to this girl (very high risk of gang rape) and at younger age than 11. The rapists were never successful. It wasn’t because I was ugly or diseased. It was because I used some common sense and was taught how to survive at an early age. Yes, the rapists are evil people, but this girl’s family showed gross neglect in not teaching her about life.
Really? There was nothing you could have told her? “If anybody ever penetrates your vagina, or asks you to touch their penis, as soon as you’re away from those people call the police.” Tell her that over and over. Every few weeks make up scenarios similar to that and extensions of it and quiz her on what she’d do while eating breakfast to keep her thinking about “if it ever came to that, I’m prepared.” And that’s the overkill approach. Above all, make it clear that she shouldn’t be afraid of everyone, and the world isn’t an evil, horrible place, but that this is the best course of action should the world shit on her. You can’t prepare people for everything (“honey, what will you do if the Reds invade?”), but you can prepare them for the statistically significant scenarios like rape, seeing a friend get assaulted, bullying, cheating at school, drug dealing etc. She was a victim, but just because she’s a victim doesn’t mean she’s relegated to sitting by and doing nothing. She has options, she has things she CAN do. She can, of course, choose to not do them, but if she’s conditioned to report people that do this sort of stuff not only do chances increase that she won’t be harmed again by those same people, she’s helping other people not get harmed by them. She’s not evil or bad by not reporting them, but it’s preferable for her own health to be taught to report them, so it makes the most sense to tell her what her options are in those scenarios.