Recently the world’s been treated to a beautiful tale of young love blossoming amidst the verdant Pocono hills, except that it is not love but is instead rape and the hills add nothing to the story but for a place to hide the results of a self-administered abortion:
The Monroe County man charged with raping a girl and getting her pregnant buried the fetus in a makeshift grave after the 13-year-old girl induced an abortion with a pencil, court documents allege.
Michael J. Lisk, 30, of Polk Township allegedly retrieved the fetus, in a bag, from a tree where the girl threw it after delivering it on Saturday. He took the bag to Lower Middle Creek Road in the township and buried it there, state police said in an affidavit.
Read the rest of the story here, and here, and here.
The repeated rape of a teenager is rage-inducing enough, but what will really butter your biscuit are comments such as this one by Amused Cracker:
She truly wasn’t raped. She knew what she was doing and willingly had sex with the man. Rape is when the sex is forced against the person’s own will.
There is a difference…
Children today are NOT the same as 20+ years ago. It’s not uncommon for an 11-year old child to be experimenting sexually, unlike years ago. Society is a LOT different.
and this, by IMEeezy8 (hur):
this is not some little girl, she is a teenager, I know when I was 13, I knew what sex was and that is caused pregnacy and that we have babies in hosipitals. If we dont know anything by that age, then the education system in america is a joke. she should be charged because she knows that wasnt right, bottom line.
or this, by MorgansMomma:
You are assuming that she did nothing wrong. Oh, I’m sorry…pursuing a sexual relationship with a 30 year old is the right thing to do? Putting a pencil up your crotch to kill the child that SHE helped concieve is the right thing to do? Not telling anyone she was pregnant because she was scared to tell her parents is the right thing to do? Right…she’s sooooo innocent. She’s just a victim.
or this, by Veteran:
The way some of these young girls dress and act today, it’s not a surprise that this guy took advantage of the situation.
If only those were the lone awful comments, or even the worst ones! Alas they are not, but as angry as they make me, the kind of ignorance displayed therein should not come as a surprise as it is the result of a phenomenon as old the Pennsylvania hills and no doubt as old as rape itself.
If you allow yourself to believe that the world is just and logical, when confronted by an outrageous evil your tendency will be to look for a way — any way — to explain the event without surrendering the original belief. If the world is just, then we get what we deserve. If the world makes sense, then victims of crimes have done something to deserve their fates.
How comforting it must be to think this. It frees the believer from needing to confront the fact that evil is illogical and that no matter how hard we work to make it otherwise, chaos always wins the game. If you are a proponent of the just-world phenomenon you know that your 13-year-old daughter will never be raped by a 30-year-old man, because you have taught her better. You dress her more modestly. You supervise her more.
Embrace the just world and everything becomes a fetish. Your actions are a series of talismans strung on a cord. Grasping the cord keeps you safe.
How terrifying would it be for Amused Cracker and her cohorts to have that cord yanked from their hands, because once they let it loose, they would begin to fathom that no amount of societal change, sex ed, school-girl crush or low-cut top could keep their daughters — or them — safe.
Also read: Citizens of the Poconos, unite against slutty teen rape victims!
I love your use of the image of the fetish object. It’s an elegant and eloquent symbol for this, given that the other meaning of fetish is so often construed in a sense just as negative as the victim blaming these comments are doing – not only is this idea of a just world a comfort blanket that is clung to; the parts of the world that step outside their idea of what is moral are dirty, perverted, and condemnable. Or so they are perceived.
Anyway; just want to say that I completely agree with your anger in response to this situation, and that while I wish this was a world in which it wasn’t necessary to write about these sorts of outrages, I’m glad that you do write about them with such grace and compassion.
I… wow… ugh… in a strange way, the most viscerally disturbing word in this story was “pencil”.
I am astounded at the lack of sympathy for this child. Rape is rape and an neither an 11yr old nor a 13 yr old can consent by law to sex with anyone so whether it was forced or statutory is inconsequential he however is an adult and needs to be accountable for his heinous actions. Why do people want to blame the child and expect her to be accountable at an adult standard. Human development proves that 11-13 yr olds are not adults no matter how they dress or behave.
Thank You for taking the time to post this
Thank you for this.
13 year olds don’t generally understand what all comes with sex. I had sex at 14 and was totally caught off guard by what I felt. No, HE was wrong. She is impressionable, he isn’t.
Two boys, both 10, convicted of attempted rape by an eight year old girl who said – on the stand- she was afraid her mum wouldn’t give her dessert because she was late. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7760986/Boys-convicted-of-attempted-rape-branded-criminals-for-playing-doctors-and-nurses.html . Sorry, I am losing my ability to sympathize one handedly.
The world is not just or logical for either sex.
I think this speaks to the same thing Aag is doing about. It seems that these were kids experimenting as kids will do sometimes. And yet their actions are viewed through adult eyes and we assume that these children have the same sensiblilities that we do. They absolutely do not.
I agree. There is a marked difference between blaming a child victim of long-standing rape (and it is, given the fact that she is a /child/ and he is an /adult/), and a case in which 3 /children/ engage in concerning–to some–behavior while telling different stories.
It’s a matter of someone taking advantage of a child. Not gender. If the report had been relations between a grown woman and long-standing rape of a 13 year old boy, the offense would be just as heinous. And if the comments were about how he should feel lucky that he’s ‘gettin some’ at a young age and ‘dude’s shouldn’t complain about getting ass whenever’ and ‘guys are just horny at any age he was just asking for it’, those who spout those views would be just as ignorant, disgusting, and counter-productive to sexual health and maturity as those who blamed the girl for carrying out relations with a grown man and for wearing short skirts.
Victims are not defined by gender, but the crime done to them.
We are a society that just LOVES to blame the victim… even if she is just a little girl of 13. So disgusting.
The sad part is, if he forced her to abort half of them would be on her side. This has nothing to do with misunderstanding consent– but she aborted the baby, so that makes it all her fault because she’s a bad girl. Good girls who get raped tell someone and then carry the child to term even if their mother disowns them for it.
It is absolutely not this child’s fault. I daresay that attitudes like those of the commenters are what leads to these kinds of situations in the first place. Hiding your head in the sand does not prepare your children for anything.
what the fuck has happened to this world that fucking brain-dead morons such as those you quoted are running around free and not locked up in dungeons undergoing their own private spanish inquisitions? jesus fucking christ i spent too much time teaching in university and not enough time watching the world go to hell outside the gates of school. god help us all if there are fucking dumb asses like these…
i recently served on a jury in a criminal trial concerning what the lead detective referred to as “finger banging.” the women on the jury felt that the victim deserved what she got because she was a low-moral stripper, and they did not want to “ruin” the man’s life for his actions because the victim was obviously lying. the only two jurors who voted guilty were myself and a genuine rocket scientist, both of us holding at least one ph.d. the fork lift operator, the housewife, the school teacher, all felt the victim got what she deserved.
god help us…
‘Victim’ and ‘deserved’ used positively in the same sentence is vomit inducing unless the sentence includes respect and support. Morality (such a subjective thing) has nothing to do with injustice. It is always deeply saddening to hear that people today still strip themselves of their ability to be compassionate in such a manner. :(
They cling to blame because it makes them feel invincible.
Because THEY didn’t do what the victim did, they cannot be hurt in the same way.
Pity them.
Don’t forget that victim blaming is also great for use against things you don’t like – that stripper deserved it, because she’s a stripper, duh. Of course women who take their clothing off for money can’t complain about a stranger Doing Things to them. It makes people feel safe (‘I don’t do that!’) as well as smug and superior (‘see what happens to those people? I’m not like that’)
Hell, my own mother, after I told her I had been assaulted, said “Well, you do put your self into situations” and the word “Lifestyle” came up, but I was too busy screaming in my head, and crying to listen.
Anyway. People are douche bags.
Sad but true.
My parents are absolutely convinced that I’m going to be killed because I put myself “into situations.” I say that’s a risk I’m willing to take.
Yes, that’s exactly it — it relieves them of any responsibility in making the world better if they can just believe that everything is already hunky-dory. But to believe that everything is already hunky-dory, they need to believe that crimes are justified. And if crimes are justified, then that means there are no true victims.
Sad, innit. And this is why so /many/ survivors (such as myself, back in the day) keep our lips taut and our jaws clenched. Because so many people, desperate to cling to their childlike belief that eye-for-an-eye is how things really work and nothing is committed without provocation, blame the victim.
Realizing this, though, has made recovering easier. Because really, these people are pitiable.
“Victims are not defined by gender, but the crime done to them.”
Right, but it’s hugely significant that most rape victims are women and most rapists (by a long shot) are men. According the Bureau of Justice, “An estimated 91% of victims of rape are female, 9% are male and 99% of offenders are male.” One of the problems is the way we talk about rape–or the way the first article does. I find it creepy that the original article quoted the offender: “Lisk admitted he had sex with the victim “too many times to count,” and compared their relationship to “a marriage where you have sex all the time.”" The statement is totally outrageous–he’s not in a marriage, he’s a child molester. But people read that crap and are like, “oh, they were a loving wittle couple”. Ugh.
aag, can you also link to the blog article that you posted on Twitter the other day about this? That author said what I wanted to say better than I can.
http://blog.iblamethepatriarchy.com/2010/06/09/citizens-of-the-poconos-unite-against-slutty-teen-rape-victims/
Twisty does have a way with words. :)
This weblog is being featured on Five Star Friday!
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What does she have to say?