by yoursl | Oct 19, 2016 | Dating/Relationships, Sex and Culture, Sex Crimes and Trials, Sex in the News, Sexual Abuse, Women's Sexual Health |
Sexual violence against women is not a joke. For a public figure, especially someone who is running for the highest political office in the country, to think sexual violence is humorous “locker room talk” is despicable as well as disrespectful to victims of sexual violence. “This was not just a lewd conversation, this wasn’t just lock room banter, this was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior,” First Lady Michelle Obama said in a speech on October 13. She summed up the situation very well and that started my thinking of the facts and data on sexual violence in America and what can be done to reduce its prevalence. Every two minutes an American is sexually assaulted and the majority of victims are between the ages of 12 and 34, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. One in five women and one in 16 men are sexually assaulted while in college, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This set of statistics includes all cases of sexual violence. One in five women and one in 71 men will be raped in their lifetimes, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This set of statistics just looks at rape and nothing else in the sexual violence crimes category. I’m not a sociologist, a criminologist or a police officer. I am not a judge or a prosecutor. I am a college-educated and real-life trained journalist. I am a human being with intelligence. I am a woman — one who has survived sexual assault. I’ve been thinking for a long time about sexual...
by yoursl | Aug 27, 2015 | Sex Crimes and Trials, Sexual Abuse |
The St. Paul’s School rape trial is in full swing. The victim in this case is a 16-year-old girl, who was a 15-year-old freshman at the time of the alleged incident, which took place on May 30, 2014, just days before graduation. The victim has stated she was a virgin at the time of the alleged attack. The alleged perpetrator is Owen Labrie, a 19-year-old who was a member of the 2014 St. Paul’s School graduating class. Labrie was charged with three counts of aggravated felony sex assault, four counts of misdemeanor sex assault, endangering the welfare of a minor and using a computer to set up the alleged attack. Labrie allegedly used email and the social networking site Facebook to lure the victim to an isolated location at the school. The sentence for the each felony charge is up to 20 years in prison. St. Paul’s School, located in Concord, New Hampshire, is an elite prep school where the tuition exceeds $50,000. At the heart of this rape trial is the St. Paul’s tradition of the “senior salute,” in which graduating senior boys attempt to score sexually with younger girls. The goal is to take the virginity of young girls, the younger the better. Labrie himself has stated that the senior boys kept an online scoreboard of these sexual encounters and that he “wanted to be number one.” Labrie’s defense attorney, J.W. Carney, Jr., commented to the media that “…the senior salute has been a tradition for so long at St. Paul’s School that it would be entirely unfair to put the blame on a single student for engaging...
by yoursl | Oct 30, 2014 | Sexual Abuse |
Ray Rice, a former football player for the Baltimore Ravens, has appealed the NFL’s decision to indefinitely suspend him from the league after evidence surfaced that clearly shows Rice in the midst of an act of domestic violence. In a surveillance video, Rice is shown knocking his then fiancée and now wife unconscious in an elevator before hauling her lifeless body out of the elevator and dumping her face-first on the floor. Rice is claiming it is “unfair” that he was punished twice by the NFL for his behavior. The first punishment was a two-day suspension that occurred prior to media sources showing addition footage of the elevator video. Once that extra footage, which shows Rice clearly punching his fiancée/wife in the face, became public, the NFL gave Rice a second punishment of an indefinite suspension from the league. His appeal is scheduled to begin on Nov. 5. From my own and others’ past experiences, I know that domestic violence on the Ray Rice scale does not happen out of nowhere. Domestic violence usually begins slowly, with small attempts to control the victim financially, emotionally, and physically, and then starts to gain speed as the victim loses more of his or her self-esteem throughout the abusive relationship. A Ray Rice incident is on the far end of the domestic violence spectrum and is a good indicator that his relationship with his fiancée/wife most likely is or has been one riddled with domestic violence. The NFL...
