At some point in the past few weeks, Alexis discovered this website. And by discovered, I mean "discovered." She has known about it all along. She consents to most of what goes here. Still, it's different to know about it than it is to actively seek it out and start reading my words.
We've had talks about the reading of the words and how some of it is completely fine, but that other posts need to wait. I've helped her navigate to a few things and clicked her away from some others. It's an OK thing we've gotten going on right now.
The whole reading of my words has left me thinking a little harder about the virtual bread crumbs I'm leaving for her. I want her to eventually use this site as a way of remembering and guiding herself, but sometimes I stop short of saying what I really think because I don't want to impose my beliefs on her. Truly. I want her to fact find and investigate and decide for herself.
But there are a few things that are not negotiable. I've done enough fact finding and thinking for the both of us, so she just plain needs to read the words, understand them, and OWN them.
The Steubenville rape case has me thinking about some of those words. Quite simply, no girl deserves to be raped. I don't care what she's wearing or what she's drinking or where she's going -- no one deserves that. I would have thought we could all agree on that issue by now, but just today I was reminded that we don't. Just today I stood stunned silent as someone handed me their cell phone to show me a photograph of the victim taken from her Facebook profile as that someone commented about how she was "dressed pretty slutty" in the photo.
The person didn't mean their words to come across the way they did, but still. STILL. Here we are. STILL. We can't seem to stop commenting on the victim when we're dealing with rape. (Don't even get me started on the fact that there are people passing around information about the identity of the girl. It makes my head explode in fiery rage.)
2 Steubenville Football Players Guilty of Raping Drunk Girl at Party
That was the headline. That was the headline that made me see stars formed out of anger this past weekend. Every single local news station used a variation of it. WTAE, WPXI, and KDKA. All three. Then there was the CNN debacle.
Look, I know we've hashed this whole thing repeatedly on social media, but YOU GUYS. What if the headline had been something like this?
2 Steubenville Football Players Guilty of Stealing Car from Drunk Girl at Party
Or how about:
2 Steubenville Football Players Guilty of Murdering Drunk Girl at Party
Can you murder a drunk person? Do we debate that like we debate whether or not a drunk girl can be raped? Do we talk about how the murdered person deserved it because of what they were wearing or where they were walking? Do we say they were "asking for it?"
I could go on for days.
Alexis, eventually you will read these words and when you do, let's talk. Let's talk about how it's rape no matter what you're wearing or what you're drinking or where you're at -- if you do not consent IT IS RAPE. But when we're done with that talk, we're going to talk about how to not get raped because apparently mothers still have to teach that to their daughters.