Anonymous To Steubenville: You’re Welcome That We Brought Attention To Your Little Rape Problem

Screen Shot 2013-03-18 at 7.34.36 AM

Anonymous has been supporting and raising awareness for the Steubenville victim, the 16-year-old Jane Doe (And yes, I know many people in the world, myself included, know her name, yet I refuse to use it, because she is a child, and the victim of a crime) ever since they first heard about the case. The first peaceful protest in Steubenville against rape and rape culture took place a few days after Christmas, and Anonymous has been in town almost every weekend since. People have braved the cold and slippery conditions to drive from all over. When someone didn’t have transportation, I have seen people offer rides and make sure that anyone who wanted to attend the vigils against rape had a way to get there. I have seen people share hotels rooms, pay for each other’s meals, jump each other’s cars when batteries were dead. And a lot of hugging.

Steubenville-Rally-hug

 

But not everyone is thrilled with the roll Anonymous played in the investigation, especially not the people at Breitbart.com who had their own spin on things in an article entitled : GUILTY VERDICT IN STEUBENVILLE RAPE CASE THAT SAW ANONYMOUS TERRORIZE AN ENTIRE TOWN !!!1111!!!!!111!!!ELEVENTY!!!! (Ok, I may had added that extra punctuation):

Anonymous promoted a pack of rumors that spread like wildfire on the internet, involving complex conspiracies involving what they termed ‘a brutal gang rape’ in Steubenville. Bruzzese says “For months now, I’ve watched the internet lynch mob spin a tale from nothing. They sold the media a story where an girl was drugged, carried from party to party in the trunk of a car, photographed by dozens of party goers as she was raped at series of parties, urinated on and finally dumped on the front lawn of her parent’s house. The trial showed that none of that was true.”

 

OK. “The victim wasn’t drugged.” According to text messages the victim sent (But by all means, let’s not believe the victim, because that would be insane, believing a rape victim) she said medical reports claimed she was drugged. No one knows for sure if this girl was drugged. She said she was drugged, she said that due to previous experiences with alcohol she felt “different” after consuming a drink at a party, and a lot of the evidence presented was that of the victim being unconscious. But whatever, drugged or just drugged with booze (and yes, alcohol is a drug!) the victim didn’t remember a whole lot of the night of the 11th and the morning of the 12th. I don’t recall anyone, including the 16-year-old rape victim, claim she was transported in the trunk of a car. She was driven in the backseat of a car, where her carpool buddies decided to videotape her being “digitally penetrated” by one of the rapists in this case, Trent Mays. ”Photographed by dozens of party goers.” Well, we do know the 16-year-old rape victim was indeed photographed by a few different people, and I’m sure when the grand jury investigation gets underway we may discover that she was indeed photographed by a few more people. Time will tell. “Urinated on.” That wasn’t proven in court, but what was proven was that some of the boys in attended thought it would be HILARIOUS if she was urinated on, and one of them even offered money for people to do it. And finally, “dumped on her parent’s lawn.” Another rumor I have never seen reported in the “Left wing media.”

We have argued this whole “brutal rape” semantic argument before, so I don’t feel the need to rehash it again. You feel there is such an animal called a “gentle” rape, I disagree with you.

Anonymous did the right thing in this case, for the victim. And even the rape victim in this case has said so as well. From a twitter user who is friends with the victim, her brother, and her family, and who has been in frequent contact with her since her rape in August :

She said she was very thankful we Anonymous along…she was happy we remained here..we were her voice..she didn’t need to speak..she was aware of that. She has been reading all the tweets and messages of love and support from members of Anonymous and the world and she is very grateful.

 

So stick that in your “Anonymous terrorized a town” rhetoric-hole because not only did they bring nationwide attention to a terrible crime, even the victim was thankful they did so. And by doing so, they brought attention to rape and rape culture, and hopefully have done their part and will continue to do their part standing up for victims and seeking justice for all of those who have been raped.

(Photos: twitter/Twitter Cassandra Rules)

Share This Post:
    • Kiki

      spot on! thank you for writing this

    • Tinyfaeri

      “The internet lynch mob did damage to their own stated goal of helping the victim by putting her in an international spotlight that only served to humiliate her.”
      I have so many problems with this quote from the “we were terrorized, boo hoo” article – the victim is not humiliated by people knowing she was raped, violated, abused and beyond disrespected (she may feel humiliated from the abuse, but she is not to the rest of us). The only ones who have been humiliated at this point are the rapists and those who watched her abuse and either did nothing or FILMED IT, and those who tried to cover it up or minimize what was done after the fact. They were humiliated in front of the whole world, as they should have been. Cheers to Anonymous, because without them it sounds like this would have been just another night in this bass-ackwards town that cares more about a football program than human decency. Let it be a warning and a teaching tool to other children and teens (of both sexes) for years and years and years to come.

      • Blueathena623

        Ah yes, it wasn’t the actual events that humiliated her, it was the attention that helped bring justice to her rapists. Got it

      • http://www.xojane.com/author/eve Eve Vawter

        hahsahahahahahahah!

      • Byron

        Indeed. To those types mere knowledge by a wide populace of you being raped is much more harming than whatever trauma the actual rape causes. It’s the ultimate form of sexually repressed jerkhole. They really do believe the shame rape brings to you is worse than the actual rape itself. Such a sad mentality.

      • Blueathena623

        Of course, because now the whole world knows she’s a fallen woman, and she’ll never get a husband that way!
        In all seriousness though, i bet in some cases, some women feel that the shame of the rape is as traumatic as the rape itself, but that is a side effect of society’s tolerance of rape culture. Society pretty emphathetically does not condone stealing. If I’m robbed, there is no one saying “gah, do you really want everyone to know that someone broke into your house? I mean, wouldn’t it be easier to just put it behind you and buy new stuff? You do sometimes forget to lock the door, so how could the robbers know that you really didn’t want your stuff taken? If you really don’t want to be robbed, you should take personal responsibility and sit at home all the time with a shotgun leveled at the door, because otherwise, you’re kinda asking for it.”

    • Blueathena623

      Ok, so this isn’t exactly on topic, but after reading more and more about poppy harlow’s coverage, I keep thinking more and more about the effects of teenage popularity on adults. Poppy is almost exactly my age. We haven’t been teenagers in a while. But yet it still seems like there is this subconscious desire to fit in with the “cool” kids, hence feeling more sympathy for the popular football players. I’m not denying rape culture — I think I’ve made my stance on it pretty clear — but I do wonder how this story would have played out if Jane doe were head cheerleaders and the rapists were two stereotypical nerds (still with the good grades, still with the great potential). Would rape culture win out, and the boys still gain sympathy, or would the desire for popularity win, and these people would side with Jane doe.

      • Andrea

        They def would have sided with Jane Doe. That is the whole problem with this situation. Well, not the whole problem, but you know. The fact that the whole thing was covered up, that people sided with the “star” football players, the fact that she was slut-shamed, humiliated, that her friends didn’t even stand by her. It ALL stemmed from the football idolatry problem. Had the rapists been two nerds, this case wouldn’t have been the same AT ALL. They guys probably would have received zero sympathy (not that they would have deserved any, you know what I mean) and they probably would have lynched and hanged in the public square.

        But because those two jerks know how to throw a piece of leather around in a town that has nothing else but the high school football team going for it (and how fucking sad that is), it cause this whole outrage that a girl would DARE want her rapist punished.

    • http://twitter.com/mwj1971 megan

      The people over on Brietbart go against anything that Anonymous does, probably because they feel like complete tools and idiots for not having the guts to do the same thing.

    • Ana

      Anyone who sympathizes with the defendants does so because they either did something similar, know that they would be capable of the same acts, or know they could witness the same acts and not care enough to do anything about it. People who are relieved the defendants will go to jail and have to register as sex offenders have the morals to know nothing about what happened to that girl was ‘okay’ or ‘really not that bad because she drank too.’ It’s as simple as that. If you know someone, a woman or man, who feels badly for the defendants, run far far away from them.

      • http://www.xojane.com/author/eve Eve Vawter

        I agree with this 10000%.

      • http://www.facebook.com/kaela.taylor.9 Kaela Taylor

        The only sympathy I feel for them is that… they seem to have a lack of morals.. it’s like their parents aren’t involved in their lives.. it’s like no one taught them right from wrong.. it’s sad that they thought what they did was alright and that they were above the law all because of a SPORT…It saddens me that schools cut the ARTS to fund the sports and this is what they are creating.

    • http://www.facebook.com/valerisexton.jones Valeri Jones

      I have followed this whole backwards story from the very beginning, starting with the YouTube video that claimed “the dead girl” was “so raped” that my step kids somehow ran across in their teenage need to see all things effed up. I, for one, am so thankful to Anonymous for giving this girl a voice. If not for them, who is to say what would have happened to this story? If the football coach had it his way, it all would have been swept under the rug so his precious little star athletes could continue playing football. And then what for Jane Doe? She would have been called a slut and been made fun of for the rest of her high school career, and possibly even longer if she stayed in the same town as an adult. This would have been an instance where a high school reputation followed a girl around for her entire life! That’s not to say that there probably aren’t a bunch of little teenage fuckfaces making fun of her as it is, but at least now the world (and her fellow students, because that’s a different world in itself) know that what happened to her was 10000% wrong and that people who do bad things are punished. My thoughts and prayers are with Jane Doe as she treks along the road of recovery. <3

      • http://www.xojane.com/author/eve Eve Vawter

        This is a very lovely comment.

      • http://www.facebook.com/valerisexton.jones Valeri Jones

        Well, thank you. And also, thank you for your reports on this case all along.

      • Craig

        I agree. I especially love that you said fuckfaces.

      • http://www.facebook.com/valerisexton.jones Valeri Jones

        Thanks, Craig. I generally try not to downgrade my writing like that, but I couldn’t think of a better word to describe these little heathens that portrayed my emotions better than “fuckfaces.”

    • http://twitter.com/Tawrens Karen Kaiser

      It’s was the same way with Mike Tyson. He raped a girl and she came forward and got death threats. Tim McGraw & Kenny Chesney acted like idiots and got off because as one juror said they didn’t want to anger them because they wanted McGraw and Chesney to return. Celebrities get away with pretty much everything because they’re celebrites. These men not kids because no kid would rape would of gotten away with it due to local celebrity if the story hadn’t broken nationwide forcing them to face the truth and do at least some kind of justice. Shame they weren’t tried as adult as befitted their crimes. Steubenville tried them in juvenile court so they could give the light sentences.

      • ElleJai

        Wait, what did Kenny and Tim do? Do I have to stop listening to their music now? Tim’s no loss but Kenny would be. R. Kelly and Chris Brown are all but ruined, WHY WHY must talented people screw up so bad I can’t justify listening to them ever again?!

        Put me out of my misery, what did they do??

    • Pingback: Rick Ross Apologizes For Rape Lyrics - By Not Apologizing()