8:30pm update: I said below that Jada's story was not uncommon. Now it turns out even her particular story may be shared with another victim. The perpetrators may have done the same thing to other girls.
Now, we come to find out, as of yesterday, in doing further investigation into this case, it's not just Jada. There are other young girls who they've been posting pictures online having sex with these young girls also who are comatose and obviously unconscious. And so the police now are putting out a call to identify who are all these young girls who these videos and pictures by these alleged perpetrators are out there online and they're having sex with these girls who are obviously unconscious.They allegedly raped a friend of Jada's in the same manner at the same party.
Jada decided to share her name and her story with the press because she has nothing to hide anymore. “Everybody has already seen my face and my body,” she said, “but that’s not what I am and who I am.”Content warnings: rape, victim-blaming, sharing of photos of aftermath of assault on social media, misogynistic language.
“No one’s daughter deserved this,” her mother, who asked not to be identified by name, told KHOU 11 News. “No human being deserved this.”Yes, it's happened again. A high school girl went to a party. A high school boy drugged her drink and raped her, then posted the photos online. The new twist is that people started taking photos of themselves in the unconscious and violated girl's position and posting them online. As a joke.
But most people tweeting about it thought it was gross:
Most of the tweets we found, though, tended to be speaking out against #jadapose, calling it "childish," "pathetic" and further proof of the necessity of the #YesAllWomen hashtag...
If I may address the girl in question: Jada, you are not "a hoe." You are a beautiful young woman, and a brave one.
You did not deserve what he (or they) did to you. Nobody deserves what he (or they) did to you. I hope the rapist or rapists are charged, convicted, and serve significant time.
Nothing that was done to you, nothing that you did or didn't do, should be used by anybody as an excuse to treat you with less than the respect every human being deserves. You have every right to be angry, and you have nothing of which to be ashamed.
I applaud you for your courage.
One alleged rapist's excuses, and that of his defenders', are sickening. Maybe it took her two months to come forward because she only found out what happened while she was unconscious after he put the pictures online for the world to see? (Actually, it only took her 3 weeks from the attack.) Maybe it took her time to gather herself and decide what the best way to take care of herself was?
Jada's experience is sadly not an isolated or unusual one. Nor are her alleged attacker's attitudes unusual.
As a society, we need grown men to start being vocal leaders on issues of men's violence [link goes to Jackson Katz TedX talk].
We need to start teaching young people about consent, and what healthy sexual relationships are [link goes to Laci Green Sex+ sex ed video about consent].
As Tara Culp-Ressler says in the ThinkProgress article:
[T]he majority of teens still don’t learn anything about healthy relationships or sexual consent, and most young girls actually think of sexual violence as normal. Cases like Jada’s are happening all across the country, often exacerbated by kids who think it’s funny to post about it on social media.
© cai.
5:19 PM PT: ETA:
rape culture is victim after victim going viral on social media because people think it's "funny". #jadaposepic.twitter.com/jhXK6Pg4Lp
— Laci Green (@gogreen18) July 10, 2014