Nathan Graziano realizes he is a part of the culture that created Owen Labrie. We all are.
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I teach high school in New Hampshire—not at the prestigious St. Paul’s Academy where the sordid and saddening events that led to Owen Labrie’s rape trial occurred, rather in a public high school. Still, I know Owen Labrie. We all do.
We all guffed it up while watching American Pie where the boys in the film fervently try to get laid in their senior year of high school. I’m not sure how this is decisively different from “the senior salute,” the wretched ritual where the boys at St. Paul’s try count coupe on younger girls, the ritual that eventually led to Labrie’s indictment.
I don’t know what occurred in that room between Labrie and the then 15 year-old young woman. No one does, other than the two people who were there. I do know that, for whatever reason, what transpired terrified the young woman enough to come forward and speak, something that required an extraordinary amount of courage. Too many women who are victims of rape stay silent for the very reasons we saw: they’re forced to take the stand and succumb to a litigious assault from defense attorneys that only adds insult to injury. This is yet another sad casualty of the Labrie trial.
The problem, however, is systematic and pernicious and roots itself in the way many males view women in this society. Like the boys from American Pie—and I stress that word, “boys”—women are seen as conquests, notches on a bedpost. This is nothing new or novel. In fact, we, as a society, shouldn’t be shocked when boys objectify women and treat them like pieces of meat, something to be devoured then bragged about as their buddies slap them on the back. We’ve created it.
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Like I said, we all know Owen Labrie.
Even at St. Paul’s Academy, one of the finest prep schools in the country, an institution where liberal arts, critical thinking and philosophy are stressed; where the students, in many cases, are some of the most astute learners and ambitious minds, this type of abject misogyny and objectification occurs.
But let me step down from my soapbox because I can’t honestly say I haven’t participated in it myself. While I was raised to respect women and their bodies, I’ve been witness to more than a few braggarts, with their thumbs hitched in their belt loops, boasting about their sexual conquests. In fact, I’ve done it myself. In this sense, Owen Labrie is me, too. I’m not proud of it, but now—as a husband, the father of a daughter and a teacher of young women—I have to own it.
Now it is incumbent on me to raise my son and teach the young men in my classes to, quite frankly, cut the shit. If anything is going to change, men need to change the paradigm. I realize that hormones are hard to suppress, and there is nothing wrong with being sexually attracted to a women; however, most of us possess a stronger power to reason and the canny ability to empathize. The stories of our bedroom escapades are not nearly as amusing when it’s your daughter or your sister or your mother or your wife being reduced to an orifice.
I watched the verdict being read in Owen Labrie’s trial. The jury acquitted him of the most serious charge of rape, but found him guilty of three misdemeanors and a felony charge of using a computer to lure a minor. Labrie sobbed as the verdict was read. The young accuser was reported to have cried in the arms of her parents—a considerably different ending than American Pie.
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Photo: Geoff Forester / AP Photo
It has gotten way too easy for women to claim rape (and get a jury to believe them) when in reality some non-aggravated “rapes” are cases where women regretted “giving in” after the fact. I don’t think women should be required to show the use if force or that they attempted to resist to prove rape but it’s only far that men be allowed to bring this into evidence. Rape is a horrible thing. However, so is tarnishing a man’s reputation, employability, and very freedom of movement and choice of residence not for 5 or 10 years but FOR LIFE.… Read more »
When I was 15 and in high school, I agreed to have sex with a woman I never met or even saw. It was arraigned by a classmate. Thinking back, I wonder what I was thinking. Well, it was the fact that had I turned it down John turned down sex with a college woman would have been all over the school. I think we just assume that girls don’t have the same pressures. One of the things I try to teach the boys I mentor is don’t turn small problems into big one. Don’t make big problems huge. Life… Read more »
I think there’s something very wrong with a system that i) decides that sex between teenagers who are less than four years apart should be treated as a misdemeanor, but then ii) tacks on a computer “enticement” charge that makes a felony out of the very same behavior, and requires life-long registration as a sex offender. The fact is, virtually all sexual encounters between teenagers will, in 2015, have a “computer” component–they will be arranged in whole or in part electronically. The law (as drafted in 1999) was intended to prevent luring by strangers who are are more than four… Read more »
What if it was the girl who attended St. Paul’s on an academic scholarship and Labrie was the son of wealthy parents? Would this case had ever happened? Would the wealthy Labrie have been charged with 10 crimes? Really, 10 criminal charges, all stemming from one encounter between two high school kids! Did Labrie ever have a chance? No! I’m sorry if none of you can remember high school, but this has been going on for generations. Boys are interested in sex and in losing their virginity as soon as possible and making sure their buddies know about it. Girls… Read more »
I don’t condone any kind of actual forced sex at any age and do support prison sentences. However, the sex offender registry has over 700,000 people now registered and does not stop or solve crimes. It does however add to a huge number of people who cannot find work or a place to live for the rest of their life. As U.S. citizens who were once convicted of a crime, this is truly over the top, seriously dangerous people should be locked up, the others should have their full rights and privacy restored, otherwise, we are opening the door for… Read more »
Glad to see this collective reflection; the world will be a better place when we are all fully human in each other’s eyes. Owen was scapegoated (as in, “the scholarship boy is expendable”). And now we see St. Paul’s has removed his name from the wall listing graduates. Through these actions, they are demonstrating to the student body is that it is ok to make Owen a nonperson; that’s what you do when someone becomes inconvenient, But Owen has inadvertently served a purpose in exposing that subculture that has degraded women. I do hope he found some good mentors during… Read more »
Got to agree with you there (on the scapegoating). Somehow, if there were , oh say a library building or something that had the same last name as him (you know, from Dad’s or Grandpa’s big contribution) …Maybe they’ve just been waiting for the right (poor) boy to come along to make an example of and put an end to this school’Tradition’. Oh, while were at it, did anybody notice the mid 40 year old women in Maryland that was found guilty of rape for having sex multiple times with a 15 y.o. boy. She got weekends in jail. I… Read more »
Nathan –
Here’s an important bit of information, too.
Women are humans, and should be thought of as humans, even when we’re not your “daughter or your sister or your mother or your wife being reduced to an orifice.”
Why do people do this? I don’t understand it. Why does it take a person saying, “She’s someone’s daughter” for men to pay attention. SHE IS SOMEONE.
That is it. That’s all you need to know.
I think traditional society sets men and women up to fear and mistrust each other. With men, I think society places so much pressure on them to compete for self esteem and gives them very little opportunity to express their frustration, then sets up women to oppose their advances. If men aren’t immediately successful, they build up walls; they give into the temptation to think of women as wholly human, because then women have the power to hurt them again and again, and they feel at a disadvantage. And frustrated, because they really want sex, and they feel they really… Read more »
And yet this girl can be tried as an adult, she can (depending on the state) making adult decisions like getting medical procedures ala abortion. YET she is only a child.
He was acquitted of the rape charges and guilty of the Misdemeanors, which were the coercion in getting her there.
The language you use in this article is appalling! She was a girl or child not a “young woman”. She was a victim not an “accuser” (He was found guilty of criminal offence after all). The language you use regardless of the sentiment of the article, minimises the assault and the perpetrators guilt.
I’m truly sorry if you’ve been the victim of assault/rape, but no, his words were not “appalling.” Firstly, Owen Labrie wasn’t much more of a young man than she was a young woman, or much less of a boy than she was a girl. Women are quick to accept that girls mature sooner than boys, and yet when it comes to sexual interaction, they are all too quick to accept the role of innocent victim. As he was acquitted of rape, she is reasonably defined as an accuser; after all, accuser does not imply any guilt on her part.
She knew exactly what she was getting into. She is no child! She shaved her pubic area because she planned on a heavy make out session. They were both in the wrong and HE should not pay for this the rest of his life! She knew exactly what he wanted when she went to meet him.the jury agreed!