Out of Australia comes a case that’s eerily similar to the egregious home made snuff porn of the Orange County Rape Case here .
[Trigger warning.]
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Hey, Sheelzebub, would you mind putting that description of the tape under a cut and adding a trigger warning?
Thank you much.
Done. Sorry about that–I should have thought about this before.
Jesus fucking Christ. well, the fact that Mom and Dad think this sort of thing is A-OK gives a pretty good idea of where the sick fucks got this way in the first place.
and yeah, was also thinking of Glen Ridge. wtf is wrong with people??
How have there not yet been arrests in this case? It seems like one of the easiest possible conviction to get.
You’d think so–but it wasn’t easy in the OC rape case, and that rape was videotaped, as well. There was a mistrial (one person insisted they were guilty, otherwise, they’d have gotten away with it). The second trial ended up with some guilty verdicts, and some not guilty. This mainly due to slut-baiting by the defense.
In cases like this, it seems to me “boys will be boys” often translates into “boys will be monsters.” (And no, I’m not saying all males are monsters, so we’ll stop that flame war before it starts) How anyone could consider what’s been described here as “a bit of fun” is beyond me.
There was a notorious case in suburban Chicago a couple of years ago that involved similar behavior, and had some of the most outrageous miscarriages of “justice” I’ve ever seen.
A group of punks taped themselves raping a 16-year-old girl who had drunk herself into semi-consciousness at a house party. In a nice touch, they also scrawled sexual slurs in Magic Marker on her body.
The victim maintained, quite plausibly, that she had no memory of the attack. Yet when it came time for her to be cross-examined, the defense team started wheeling a TV towards her, intending to make her watch the video. She became very upset and refused to do so. The judge then threatened to jail her for contempt. (He reversed himself the next day in the wake of an uproar.)
To top it off, the boys were found not guilty, on the grounds that the girl consented. This despite the fact that one of them had fled the country and returned only after his buddy was found not guilty in the first trial.
The old joke about judgment by a group of people too dumb to get out of jury duty suddenly wasn’t so funny.
Not only were the boys acquitted, their parents had the same crappy attitude about it. They didn’t just go away and get on with their lives, though. The parents were at home in another part of the house while the underage drinking was going on. The woman, who was 16 years old at the time, is suing the parents for her injuries and distress. The parents have sold their home and moved away. Even if she doesn’t collect a dime, the suit will be an albatross around the defendants’ necks for a long time.
If I had a blog, this is what I would post.
“Why prosecuting the bad guys can be worse than pretending it didn’t happen.”
Well… maybe I wouldn’t post about it cause there’s just so much rage in me that boils up to the surface on this topic, it’s hard for me to discuss without devolving into a violent seriously anti-male mentality.
Oh wow… that is the most hideous thing I’ve read in awhile. That poor girl, I can’t imagine. And really, a “bit of fun”? That makes me want to vomit. It is scary to see the attitude of the parents, though. I have a little boy and I pray that he never turns out to be anything like the boys in question, but I can assure you that if he does, he will begging the judge to just let him go to prision because life would be so miserable at home. I just don’t get how you think it could be fine and dandy for your son to treat a girl that way, I would be devestated and completely mortified.
You know, I’d be mad at my kid for peeing on *anything* other than a diaper, a urinal or a commode. I’d be furious if he set fire to anything that wasn’t made to be lit on fire (like, say, a match). The anger only grows as the things he pees on or lights up get nicer. It switches to fury when he does it to a living being (including squirrels, cats etc.) I can’t imagine the unbridled rage I would feel if my kid peed on and set aflame another human being for ‘fun.’ That the parents don’t feel that rage and all consuming shame at their offspring says to me that they are monsters too.
I’d be the first person to turn my child in if they did anything like this. And I’d witness against them at trial. There’s no excuse.
Course that’s also probably why I won’t have to do it… cause I’m doing my best to raise a good, empathic, well rounded adult.
Yup, my dad would be worse than me (though believe me, I’d be tempted), he’d have gotten violent and beat the shit out of me or my siblings if we had done shit like this, yelling and screaming the whole time too.
I completely agree. If one of my sons could even concieve of doing this to another person, I’ve obviously failed as a parent. And if one of them actually did it, he’d better not ever come home because I’d make him wish he was never born.
These so-called parents just don’t want to admit to themselves that they may have majorly screwed up when they were raising these kids.
I have a little boy, and can’t imagine teaching him this sort of thing is acceptable. And you know, the saddest thing is at some earlier point these boys weren’t like this; they were born just regular kids. But their parents encouraged and fed their cruelty, and let them become the monsters they are now. And you can’t undo it by then; you can only incarcerate them to protect the rest of society. I’d like to see their parents go to jail with them.
They used to be just like me and you
They used to be sweet little boys
But something went horribly askew
Now killing is their only source of joy
-The Decemberists “The Shankill Butchers”
It’s a fine line, really, from one to the other. That poor, poor girl.
These so-called parents just don’t want to admit to themselves that they may have majorly screwed up when they were raising these kids
They don’t see themselves as having screwed up at all. They get a thrill out of their kids getting away with bad things. Greg Haidl’s father swore that “his boy” would never spend a day in jail. (Oopsie.)
My son lived with his father for a couple of years in his early grade school period. When I fought for custody (I had to as there was no divorce preceeding setting actual custody), I began to unearth the out of control world he lived in, hidden from my view. He and the son of his father’s girlfriend were allowed to rule the household and had a sense of entitlement that was like I’d never seen children have.
Immediately upon his return home, we started counseling as controlling him was difficult to say the least. His outbursts of rage at any constriction on his will were obscene and violent, with little concern for the safety, feelings and welfare of others. This was a child who was well mannered, happy and well behaved prior to living with his father.
He had a personal counselor, we had a family counselor and an in-home specialist who would come by the house to see how he behaved at home and give me in-action help in parenting him.
When he was fourteen I had him arrested for domestic violence against me and his sisters. I had to insist for over fifteen minutes on the phone with the police sargent on duty that the police come and arrest him like they would a regular batterer. I was told, “It can’t be all that bad, he’s just a boy, give him a break, take him to his grandparents’ house to let him cool off.” Cool off? He just punched me and nearly suffocated his sister — for the upteenth time! Cool off? As if his behavior would just float away in the sunset.
Then, once he was in juvenile confinement, I was cajoled to take him home before his hearing, ‘give him a break’, etc. I didn’t. I pushed him through every program available, had him placed outside the home three times and finally sent him off to job corps when he was seventeen. I can’t tell you how many people, especially women, rebuked me or judged me for being too harsh on my son.
He straigtened out and I have found reason to believe he was sexually abused during his time with his father, although he hasn’t come right out and said it, so I can’t legally strangle his father like I’d like to.
My point anyway, is that yes, children are profoundly affected by their environment. Unfortunately, too many in our society still have a hard time seeing males as having to respect anyone’s boundaries, especially those of a female.
When I see people having a problem with punishing males for this type of behavior, it reminds of my son and how much difficulty so many people had with seeing his behaviorial problems as seriously as I did.
One thing is pissing me off about the media coverage of this case here. Perhaps it’s a minor point, but news reports keep describing the victim as degraded.
There is nothing about this girl that is worth any less, that is diminished, less lovable, more contemptible, than before the attack.
It is the boys who are contemptible, repulsive and degraded by their behavior.
I’m sick of hearing the implication that she is sullied and damaged beyond repair.
I know that they are trying to counter the “just a bit of fun” crowd, but, while her recovery will be difficult, the shame of this attack does not belong with her.
Misfish, well put. The portrayal of female rape victims as being somehow less worthy post-attack has always struck me as being yet another form of slut-shaming, painting a scarlet letter exactly where it does not belong.
It is the boys who are contemptible, repulsive and degraded by their behavior.
I’m sick of hearing the implication that she is sullied and damaged beyond repair.
I know that they are trying to counter the “just a bit of fun” crowd, but, while her recovery will be difficult, the shame of this attack does not belong with her.
I couldn’t agree more, misfish. We need to pay some very serious attention to ensuring that shame does not continue to apply around female sexuality in general and sexual assault in particular. There is absolutely *none* that would attach to the victim in the world we’re trying to create. Recovery from sexual assault would therefore not involve a ‘dealing with shame’ component any more than it would if an assault was not at all sexual.
Which leaves us with the contemptible, repulsive and degraded boys. I’ve been involved in a bit of blog discussion about this before, but again, because it’s an ongoing discussion and I’m still looking for answers, what I want to know is ‘what is the conversation – spoken and unspoken – going on between boys and men when they are bonding via gang sexual assaults on lone girls or women? Because that’s what they’re doing. Male bonding. All over the world.
While it’s pretty bloody obvious that they’re bonding over a shared contempt for women which stems from patriarchal social conditioning, I think we need to start addressing this head on by analysing the contents of their minds openly – during court trials, while they’re incarcerated once convicted and so on. What I’m saying is that we need to really focus our attention here, instead of the usual ‘they were just normal, nice, well-adjusted boys and this is out of character for them, and let’s check out the sexual history of the victim and try to discover or ‘prove’ how she might have led them on before we consider damaging these otherwise good boys’ futures….’ Let’s start asking – in court – about the perpetrators attitudes towards girls and women, and start shaming *them* about what society *needs* them to be ashamed of. (And, of course, on a day to day basis, men need to do a whole lot more shaming of other men who exhibit sexist behaviours. Silently congratulating themselves and feeling superior when they don’t share those attitudes isn’t enough to help change anything.)
I understand that no-one is likely to be suggesting that the girl in this case led anybody on, and maybe this would provide an opportunity to look closer at just the boys thoughts and behaviour. If only there were someone in an influential position in the case who’d be preapared to take this long, long overdue tack and make an example of them. They’d then have to find a way to get over the shame that rightfully belongs to them and not their victim.
I also think that some parents will believe anything that their kids say, regardless of evidence to the contrary. They can’t believe that their kid might be capable of doing something bad.
I have only recently recognized a certain dynamic in my family — my dad has a history of not believing me and accusing me of lying about certain things, but he always believes my brother. My dad would jump to the conclusion that I must have done something bad, but would insist that my brother couldn’t have done whatever it is someone was accusing him of.
I’m not talking about anything even remotely as serious as rape or assault or anything, just sort of run of the mill stuff that kids get in trouble for, but I wonder how common this is — for parents, maybe especially fathers, to assume that their daughters lie but their sons tell the truth?
Re: Red
I didn’t really notice that dynamic in my family. It was more along the lines of “that explaination isn’t good enough, so you must be lying”.. usually to both of us at the same time… one of us would usually wind up making up a lie he would believe and then taking the punishment for it… even though we did nothing wrong. He just didn’t believe us.
I agree with you REd, my family was the same, my brother was beyond reproach at all times while it was expected that I take responsibility for every accusation thrown my way and ‘take’ my punishment without complaint. My brother was allowed to negotiate his way out of most sticky situations with our parents. I also found it easier to be hard on my two daugthers who didn’t have half the problems my son did. I had to check myself often.
Misfit: I think often about the fact that our society seems to accept the fact that men will behave badly (serial killers, rapists, pedophiles)and spend little effort trying to understand the behavior with a goal to changing it and preventing its development in future generations.
Seems to go back to the ‘men are animals and that’s that’ excuse.
You know what else is fucked up: that part of the reason, i think, that that particular noxious form of “male bonding” is so prevalent, is because there are only so many ways that men -can- acceptably “bond” in a misogynistic, homosocial *and* homophobic culture. The woman is necessary to prove “we’re not gay;” the contempt must be expressed because otherwise they wouldn’t be superior. And of course it’s intimate (with the other men) in a fucked-up sort of way, but it’s brutal and violent and dominating, because any other way would be, well. You know.
Bark/Bites had a good post about this at one point; how the thing about “trains” is that, if you stop and think about it, how many other contexts are there where an ostensibly straight man puts his dick where another’s has just been?
(he had something like):
f’r instance, the scenario wherein one boy peels off his jock and offers it to another to wear, who accepts it gladly:
“Thanks! Hey, it’s still warm! Sweet.”
…and that part of the reason why there’s so much investment in “men are animals” is–well, yes, it’s all to do with maintaining the place at the top of the pecking order, but it’s fear, not just love of the domination. The carrot is that particular brand of macho dickhead misogyny; the stick is the threat of being cast into the “faggot” and thus “untouchable” realm. works great; not only does the homophobia blend seamlessly with the misogyny (both involve fear/disgust at the idea of being the “penetrated,”) but you get your self-policing built right in.
You know what else is fucked up: that part of the reason, i think, that that particular noxious form of “male bonding” is so prevalent, is because there are only so many ways that men -can- acceptably “bond” in a misogynistic, homosocial *and* homophobic culture. The woman is necessary to prove “we’re not gay;” the contempt must be expressed because otherwise they wouldn’t be superior. And of course it’s intimate (with the other men) in a fucked-up sort of way, but it’s brutal and violent and dominating, because any other way would be, well. You know.
Girlie? And around and around we go….Yep, the above explains it pretty well, belledame. So how to address this male joo-joo. How do we stop so many men – how do they stop themselves – from feeling this absurd and frankly contemptible need to differentiate themselves from and be dominant over and superior to women (and alternative types of males or transexuals) in order to *bond* and be perceived by other men as *real men*? I reckon shaming them about it isn’t a bad idea. Ask them if they’re real men as per the limited prescription or real, grown-up, fully functioning human beings, because they can’t be both. Explain that this need for approval from other men is pathetic in the extreme, not at all admirable, and in fact encourages the kind of violence they wouldn’t like their mothers, sisters, wives, girlfriends or daughters to be victims of. ( I feel sure that most men who might be abusive to their own partners or daughters still wouldn’t like their mothers to be subjected to male violence.) Men really have to step up to this mark themselves and start bonding on a basis of full humanity. If you need approval from assholes, what does that make you?
One obvious answer to all this is to keep encouraging women to enter all fields of endeavour, also break down the gender binary, promote LGBTIQ rights and and well – feminisms goals in general, (which for me very much includes de-stigmatising female sexuality in every conceivable way) but jesus, is this thing intractable, or what!!??