Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Sexual violence; silencing of survivors.]

"I'm at the point, that if I have to go to jail for my rights, I will do it. If they really feel it's necessary to throw me in jail for talking about what happened to me, as opposed to throwing these boys in jail for what they did to me, then I don't understand justice."—Savannah Dietrich, a 17-year-old survivor, who tweeted the names of the two teenage young men who sexually assaulted her, thus violating a court order imposing confidentiality after the two juvenile defendants pleaded guilty to felony first-degree sexual abuse and misdemeanor voyeurism, a light plea deal for sexually assaulting Dietrich while she was unconscious and circulating pictures of the assault.

Following the plea, [Judge Dee McDonald] admonished everyone involved not to speak to anyone about what had happened in the court or about the crime in general, according to Dietrich.

"I was crying as she (the judge) was reading that," Dietrich said. "They got off very easy ... and they tell me to be quiet, just silencing me at the end."

Well, gee, we wouldn't want to ruin the lives of a couple of nice boys just because they raped someone.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

One of the rape culture's greatest lies is how we will collectively take seriously those rape cases in which there can be no doubt of guilt, that all the one zillion metric fucktons of rape apologia and victim-blaming and disbelieving survivors and erring on the side of caution rapists is just something we have to do so as not to besmirch the Fine Reputations of Good Men, ha ha you know he-said she-said and all that, you know how women are, but we'll definitely for sure totally take seriously those rapes where guilt is unequivocal.

Well, guess what.

It seems that no man is ever guilty enough of rape that he should be known as a rapist.