Trigger warning for rape.
I really don’t want to talk about Penn State.
I’m pretty sure that you can tell that I don’t want to talk about Penn State, because this post comes approximately two weeks after everyone stopped caring about Penn State. But apparently a post will not write itself if I just ignore the topic long enough.
But I have David Bowie and Christmas-flavored tea and my family outside my room hanging the highly problematic Confederate soldier ornament on the tree, and if I’m going to say anything about that shit I guess I have to say it now.
Seriously?
This isn’t even Feminism 101 or Sex-Positivity 101. This isn’t even Being A Decent Human Being 101. It’s, like, Remedial Being A Decent Human Being.
If you see someone being raped, CALL THE FUCKING COPS.
I don’t care whether the person is your football coach, your boss or the late Mother Teresa. I don’t care whether they spend their free time rescuing orphans, puppies or orphan puppies. I don’t care how shitty it will make your institution look, because it will make your institution look hella shitty if it turns out you were covering up the rape of children. CALL THE FUCKING COPS.
Now, there are circumstances in which rape should not automatically lead to calling the cops. For instance, if your friend tearfully confesses that he was raped, but he doesn’t want to go through it all again for the justice system and circumstances are murky enough that he might not be believed and all that victim-blaming shit would do a number on his mental health, then you probably shouldn’t call the cops. The recovery of the survivor comes first.
But if you, for instance, as a completely hypothetical example, just witnessed a rape, don’t just leave. CALL THE FUCKING COPS.
And, no, do not just tell your boss. I realize that was all that mandatory reporter laws in Penn State required, but you know what? I don’t fucking care what they required. If you witnessed the rape of a child, and you tell your boss, and he didn’t do anything, CALL THE FUCKING COPS. Because our goal here is not to satisfy the laws! Our goal here is to not have children be raped!
Now let me direct my ire at people who have been defending Joe Paterno.
I cannot believe you people exist. But there was rioting at Penn State, and I almost screamed at my girlfriend’s boyfriend for saying Paterno didn’t do anything wrong, and a reader who calls himself a gender egalitarian sent me a letter defending Paterno, so apparently there is this huge bunch of people who exist in the world who think that aiding and abetting the fucking rape of fucking children is fucking okay, if you happen to be really good at coaching football.
I mean, Roman Polanski. I shouldn’t be surprised. (Whyyy, Johnny Depp, whyyyy? I liked you so much…)
But you know what?
FUCK.
THAT.
NOISE.
Sandusky might have been the one who slipped his cock into the mouth of children who should have been playing with action figures, but he wasn’t the only one who caused their rapes. Mike McQueary, Tim Curley, Jack Raykovitz, Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz, Joe Paterno and everyone else who knew about the rapes and didn’t do anything– every rape Sandusky committed since they found out about his child-raping habits is their fault.
Because they could have stopped him, and they didn’t. Because they had it within their power to pick up the fucking phone and dial 911 and CALL THE FUCKING COPS, and they didn’t. Because they could choose between protecting their school’s reputation and protecting children from one of the most horrific crimes they could experience, and they chose the wrong answer.
I think being fired or indicted is getting off fucking lightly.
So when you say that Joe Paterno didn’t do anything that bad, when you’re an apologist for the Penn State coverup, you are an apologist for child rape. So forgive me if I get pissed right the fuck off at you.
Look, the best-run organizations occasionally end up with child rapists in them. Child rapists do not wear T-shirts that say “Kiss Me, I Rape Children” on them, nor do they generally state in job interviews that their biggest flaws are being too driven about their work and raping children. They tend to look like normal people. The thing that separates evil organizations from marginally competent organizations is how they respond.
I admit that there can be some confusion about what one should do if one has just witnessed a rape. To wit, I will now present the following guidelines about whether your plan to deal with the rape of a child is a SHITTY PLAN:
1) Imagine that kid. The one who was anally penetrated by Sandusky. Imagine him crying himself asleep at night, feeling the shame and anger and fear that rape survivors all too often feel. Now imagine explaining your course of action to him as he sits in front of you, redfaced from sobbing, tear stains down his face, his nose running with snot. Do you feel like a tremendous douchebag? Then your plan is a SHITTY PLAN.
2) Again, imagine that kid. Does your plan make him feel supported and loved, that although he has been horribly betrayed the adults in his life, even ones he’s never met, stand beside him? Or does it make perfectly clear to him that he is a sacrificial lamb for the sake of, as a completely random example, the reputation of Penn State football? If the latter, then your plan is a SHITTY PLAN.
3) Is your plan likely to leave any known child rapist in a position in which they could possibly rape children, i.e., any contact with children whatsoever? Then your plan is a SHITTY PLAN.
4) Does your plan involve CALLING THE FUCKING COPS? If not, then your plan is probably a SHITTY PLAN.
Links
Alas A Blog, Be True To Your School
Angry Black Lady, The Jerry Sandusky Rape Case: The History of the PSU Coverup
Greta Christina, Child Rape, Penn State, and the Catholic Church: Is Religion Especially Bad?
NPR, Is Football Culture The Core of The Problem?
Scalzi, Omelas State University
The Onion, Nation’s Ten-Year-Old Boys: “If You See Someone Raping Us, Please Call The Police”
Fnord: I was referring to Dungone’s account, which made it sound like he was fired for reporting.
IMPORTANT CORRECTION: “if you see someone getting raped at gunpoint, intervening might get them shot.”
This should have read, “intervening DIRECTLY or PHYSICALLY might get them shot.”
Sorry!
Holy shit, I just had an insane thought with regard to the Bystander Effect. To wit: ONLY GROW UP IN MODERATION! I have been told, over and over again, that it’s the hallmark of an emotionally immature person to think that I’m right about things. Phineas Nigellus sums it up best in Harry Potter book 5*: “Young people are so infernally convinced that they are absolutely right about everything. Has it not occurred to you, my poor puffed-up popinjay that there might be an excellent reason why the headmaster of Hogwarts is not confiding every tiny detail of his plans… Read more »
“I literally cannot comprehend that mindset. ”
That’s going to be a real handicap for you because that kind of tribalism is hard-wired into the species and being surprised and uncomprehending will make life hard for you, and I agree with you that that mindset is amoral, selfish and dangerous.
There are rumors and a few stories that say people in OWS are being told not to report their alleged rapes and other crimes to the cops, because it might make the greater movement look bad. I think they’re using the same logic. In some cases, the alleged rapists were supposedly caught, encircled, and kicked out of the camps. In other words, they had their hunting grounds reduced and got off scot-free. I literally cannot comprehend that mindset. These people are dangers to the public in general and OWS in particular, and they just care about whether they look good.… Read more »
@Lamech, that’s not quite true, according to your link:
@Lamech, thank you so much for that link. I’m not done reading the whole thing yet but things are finally starting to make more sense.
dugone: You give a bunch of very good reasons why mandatory reporting laws can be problematic. But here that is not the case, as you can see from the wiki link one person is being charged with rapes, and two more perjury. As far as I can tell no one is being charged with not reporting a crime.
What people are saying is they had a moral obligation to report a crime.
@Fnord, I think you misread monkey… he actually said what you’re saying. I don’t think it has to be as bad as the Catholic church, but it does have to meet some objective standard just to overcome Hanlon’s Razor (Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.) While I have seen a clear failure to push the case towards the police, I have not seen any truly compelling evidence that this was done on purpose. What I’m seeing here isn’t a coverup, but a limitation of how far mandatory reporting laws can be enforced before it becomes… Read more »
Hey, a link with a much better sorting of information than what I have seen here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penn_State_sex_abuse_scandal
I have no idea how to hyperlink that. Also it seems like McQueary contacted the guy who oversaw the police.
@dugone: Does it have to be as bad as the Catholic Church conspiracy to be a cover-up and a problem? It’s not like the media didn’t cover that story. @monkey: McQueary definitely wasn’t fired or put on leave for going to the police, because he DIDN’T. After telling the various figures in the administration, he didn’t do anything. Arguably, that’s why he was put on administrative leave, because he was complicit in the cover-up. What would have happened if he had gone to the police at some point is unclear. I don’t think it’s impossible that he’d be fired (at… Read more »
@Tamen, no worries. I don’t think anyone has truly piled on yet. Most, but not all, of the responses have been helpful and good natured. The ones that really weren’t were the usual suspects who never are. Sorry for pissing you off, but there is a difference between a crime and a scandal. As Greta Christina writes in Ozy’s link, “The rapes aren’t the scandal. The cover-up — that’s the scandal.” So what I said meant that the scandal is not worthy of the facts and that the greater scandal is the way the media is covering it, which, to… Read more »
Perry:
Thank you for your succinct reporting of the events. I find it hard to believe that McQueary would be fired *for* calling the police, which (unintentionally possibly) seemed to be the impression I was getting from Dungone.
I still have a problem with the idea of third and fourth-hand accounts, however. Is that wrong? Because I guess, probably wrongly, that I would assume that *somebody* would have looked into something like this at that point.
The problem isn’t that McQueary didn’t call the police right that instant. That would have been ideal, but the shock of seeing someone he knows committing a rape makes a lack of response understandable, at least, and realistically it’s unlikely that even calling the police right then would have prevented that specific rape. The problem isn’t even that he initially went to the administration rather than the police. That is what mandatory reporting laws require, as I understand it, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for someone to think that means that’s what they’re supposed to do. The problem is… Read more »
Dungone: Sorry to pile on you here, but I just want to say that in you may want to rephrase this:
Because as much as I agre that the media coverage suck on many levels drawing a comparison between those two things is not necessary and really hurtful towards any victims. And it pissed me off.
Grand juries do little other than what the prosecutor tells them to do. A grand jury report amounts to nothing other than to move the case to trial.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/11/how-reliable-are-grand-jury-reports.html
Anyway during the trial I suspect the grand jury report will seem tame by comparison. More details and testimonies will come out.
…does anyone remember when TB was banned for significantly less rape apology than dungone is spewing right now?
I mean, not only is he not condemning anyone BESIDES Sandusky, he seems rather reluctant to even condemn Sandusky. “Alleged pedophile” my ASS, Jerry Sandusky IS a child molestor. He has literally been caught having sex with children. There is no “alleged” about it.
But no, he’s all off on “what really happened” when it’s actually very clear what really happened with 5 minutes of research.
Dungone: Here is the first grand jury report, with testimony from witnesses: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/06/sports/ncaafootball/20111106-pennstate-document.html It wasn’t just a matter of “some slapping sounds” that might have some innocent explanation. According to testimony from Mike McQueary, in the showers at Penn State: “He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky.” McQueary eventually told Paterno, and then later told athletic director Curley and Schultz, the “vice president of business and finance.” Although Schultz’s office oversees the campus police –… Read more »
Also Dungone: you can’t put rape alarms in people’s *homes*. Your solution doesn’t change the fact that the eyewitness should have gone to the cops directly.
If you think that religious groups have a monopoly on these crimes, you’re seriously mistaken. It can happen in any organization in which adults have extraordinary authority over minors.
The idea that organized sports could harbour these crimes is nothing new to Canadians, who endured a scandal surrounding hockey. And in that case there *was* a coverup.
Also, an expense? That’s just an excuse! It’s only an expense if you go through a dysfunctional procurement process worthy of a NASA toilet. Get a $9 wireless doorbell button, for crying out loud. I could design a perfectly adequate system to equip an entire building for a couple hundred bucks using off-the-shelf parts. I guess I’m an engineer, though. I mean, you’re telling me that when I’m sitting on the airplane and I want a glass of water, I just push a button and an attendant comes and gives me a glass of water – but when little children… Read more »
“How is expecting people to press three buttons pushing it too far?” Well apparently it is asking too much, since that’s how we respond when women are witnesses or victims of a crime. Why do you think college campuses are dotted with police call boxes? That’s how we respond to crime when women are involved. All I’m saying is quit it with the super-agency man myth and put those fucking things into locker rooms. Cut it out with the super-agency man myth and treat everyone the same. And for crying out loud, the guy was a witness to a crime!… Read more »
We can only push personal responsibility so far? How is expecting people to press three buttons pushing it too far? Your proposed solution would involve massive expenditure in order to eliminate two of those button presses, no more. As far as the pedophile alarms go, it doesn’t seem like those would be even close to worth the cost. Now, before you go off on how any cost is worth it to save the children, keep in mind that we already have a device which is capable of notifying the police at a moment’s notice. Most of us have these devices… Read more »
We live in such a fucked up society. Our government’s strategy on social issues is this – set individuals up for failure, roll a couple heads to pacify the activists, and set them up for even more failure in the future. And call it a “culture of accountability.”
@dancinbojangles, no, actually it differs from the Catholic church in all the ways that I mentioned, plus more, much more. Perhaps you’re not familiar with the Catholic church, but “declining to notify the police” has been the least of their shortcomings. If you look at what the church did, the Penn State staff look like a bunch of saints. Education, as I see it, would consist of: Seriously, call the police. No, seriously. You seriously have to call the police. Where have I heard this before? Let me think… “Seriously, abstain. No, seriously. You should seriously abstain.” I guess that’s… Read more »