Today In Rape Culture
By This story should be read in its entirety if you haven’t yet. To briefly summarize:
- Under Missouri law, having sex with someone too intoxicated to give meaningful consent is sexual assault
- A high school senior had sex with a 14-year-old young woman, whose blood alcohol content was 0.13 seven hours after her last drink. The young woman also credibly claims to have no memory of the sexual intercourse.
- Charges were not filed against the alleged rapist, whose family’s political connections apparently trumped the overwhelming evidence against him
- The community then directed outrage…against the victim’s family. Her mother was fired from her job as a direct result. In addition, the house they put up for sale was burned down, although it’s not clear that this was the result of the rape accusations at this point.
Appalling and heartbreaking, and sadly not terribly surprising.
UPDATE: Emily Bazelon has a good, very detailed take.