Support the Boys: A Glimpse At the First-World Front Lines
Support the Boys
Earlier this month, Rehtaeh Parsons passed away. Her family took her off life support; a teen suicide is completed. The young woman was allegedly raped two years ago, and then bullied to death in the wake of the incident.
While police initially said there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone, the Anonymous hacking cooperative claimed to have identified the alleged rapists and threatened to release the names; with rising public interest in the case,
the RCMP has re-opened the investigation. Though one of the young men allegedly named as an attacker has
denied his involvement and denounced the problems the accusation has caused him—such as having to shut down his Facebook page in order to avoid criticism—Justice Minister Ross Landry has issued a public apology for his failure to pursue this case appropriately when it arose.
But in this case, which includes the distribution of child pornography—that is, photos taken during the alleged assault—leading to Ms. Parsons' tragic suicide, we are reminded that there are two sides to every story:
brings the detail:
Friends, family and supporters of the four boys allegedly involved in the Rehtaeh Parsons case have taken their voice to the streets of Halifax.
Bright, multi-coloured posters with the words: "Speak the truth. There's two sides to every story. Listen before you judge. The truth will come out. Stay strong and support the boys" have gone up in neighbourhoods around Halifax, including in the area around Rehtaeh's mother's house.
Meanwhile, a Facebook page called Speak the Truth, which aims to support the accused rapists and child pornographers, was shut down on Monday:
The group had grown to almost 130 members when the curator shut it down early Monday afternoon.
The curator wrote, "Sorry guys, but I'm taking down the support group because the police have asked that it be removed due to the fact this is 'cause names to get leaked out and spread around."
The members of the group were mainly friends of the boys, but there were also adults who lent their support.
"Chin up boys, truth will prevail. My heart goes out to Rehtaeh who felt she had to take her own life to end her misery but I believe this is 'cause of the bullying she endured," read one posting.
Another read, "One thing that came out of this support group, the boys can actually see who would be there for them, and that's all of us."
Police confirmed they spoke to the woman who started the group and expressed concerns for the boys' safety if their names got out.
While there is certainly much to argue between supporting those innocent until proven guilty and the grotesque perversity of putting these posters in the neighborhood around the late Ms. Parsons' home, it is also important to point out an underlying problem with the Speak the Truth approach:
"Chin up boys, truth will prevail. My heart goes out to Rehtaeh who felt she had to take her own life to end her misery but I believe this is 'cause of the bullying she endured," read one posting.
The problem is that the bullying is connected to the alleged assault, and, we might remind, includes the distribution of child pornography.
Charlie Gillis, writing for
Maclean's, explains the obvious point:
The break, though too late for Rehtaeh Parsons, was nevertheless welcome. What police described as a “credible source” had offered information on the origin of pictures allegedly showing Parsons, then 15, being raped at a party—photos her schoolmates in Cole Harbour, N.S., shared widely via text messages, to the girl's humiliation and despair. An RCMP investigation into the incident led nowhere, and on April 4, after months of online bullying linked to the still-circulating pictures, Parsons hanged herself in the bathroom of her family home. Mounties held out hope this week that their new lead would help them crack the case. “We're back in business,” declared spokesman Cpl. Scott MacCrae. But no investigation seems likely to answer another, far-reaching question arising from Parsons's death: when the pictures first emerged, why did none of her peers speak up?
Social media experts refer to them as “bystanders.” For every bully gleefully mini-casting embarrassing images, or mean girl tapping out snarky comments, they say, there are recipients in Canadian high schools too scared or complacent to voice their disgust at what they're seeing. In the case of Rehtaeh Parsons, there might have been dozens. Photos of her alleged rape at the hands of four boys spread for days around Cole Harbour High School with nary a peep to authorities from those who received it, according to those close to the 17-year-old. “[The image] quickly went viral,” wrote Parsons's mother, Leah, in a wrenching online message posted days after her daughter's death. “Rehtaeh was suddenly shunned by almost everyone she knew.”
This syndrome—familiar from past cases of so-called “cyberbullying”—has renewed concerns about the moral state of a generation that experiences much of life through pixellated screens. Members of the smartphone generation increasingly treat themselves and their peers as entertainment, explains Jesse Miller, a B.C.-based consultant who advises schools and companies on social media. Boys, in particular, can gain social cachet by being “first reporter on the scene” to deliver sensational imagery to their peers, he says. “If there's a photo of someone in your class and you're the one who can show it to your buddies, you're going to be the kid who gets that much more attention through the course of a day.”
The underlying hostility is part of the mythopoeia denounced as the Guardians of Female Chastity. Regardless of whether we follow Gillis' logic on peer pressure or consider a more sinister question of moral priority, the reality is that the damage such exploitation causes is virtually ineffable. "It's a criminal offence to share photos of underage people," laments Carol Todd, a Port Coquitlam mother whose fifteen year-old daughter took her own life after peers circulated topless photos of the girl. "People with a conscience should report this stuff."
Indeed, but in most cases they do not; the exploitative images emerge because of saturation—a spectacular story always percolates.
Certes there is the possibility that what happened to Rehtaeh Parsons was in some manner "consensual", but those who defend the perpetrators are overlooking the common roots of the two phenomena involved here.
First is the rape question, and there often arises a sentiment of, "Maybe she
did consent". There are plenty who would consider an intoxicated fifteen year-old of sufficient mind to give consent. But what of the the question of
four young men having sex with her? Well, let the slut-shaming commence. The entire question has its roots in the neurotic Demand for Female Chastity, which touches so many aspects of life in industrial society, including the basic double standard of stud and slut, the lesser but incredibly perplexing hebephile teacher double standard, and even the customs of flirting observable in any pub or club where men and women mix.
Then there is the question of exploitation. "I believe this is 'cause of the bullying", as one supporter of the alleged rapists explains it. The same phenomenon that would justify the rape is inextricably linked to the leverage of exploitation; that is, in a noble or even neutral context, there would be no exploitation. But there is no noble or even neutral context under these circumstances, unless one can provide a signed model release, in which case we're stuck with the child pornography question.
What was the point of taking and distributing the pictures? To celebrate the sublimated homoerotic triumph of four stupid boys sharing a sexual experience together?
Hillary Di Menna, of
This magazine, notes:
Three days after his daughter's suicide, Rehtaeh Parsons' father and professional writer, Glen Canning, published a post on his blog. “[Rehtaeh was] disappointed to death,” he wrote. “Disappointed in people she thought she could trust, her school, and the police” ....
.... Rehtaeh Parsons thought the worst outcome for her case would be no charges against the men who raped her but we all know better. The worst thing that could happen would be charges,” Canning added, directly addressing the Justice Minister of Nova Scotia. “That they would be found guilty, and that Rehtaeh would sit on a court bench and listen in utter disbelief as they were given parole, or a suspended sentence, or community service. All for completely destroying her life while they laughed.”
Unfortunately, Canning's not exaggerating the possiblity of light punishment. “Nova Scotia has the highest rate of sexual assault and some of the lowest charge, conviction and sentencing rates in Canada,” Liberal MLA Kelly Regan told the legislature April 9. The rest of Canada isn't so great, either. Consider this: two years ago Kenneth Rhodes served no jail time after he raped a woman because a Manitoba judge said the victim's wardrobe—a tube top—suggested, “Sex was in the air.” With such bleak facts and the added confusion to an already life-altering situation, it is no wonder only 10 per cent of sexual assaults against women are reported.
Additionally, there is a strange futility in the Nova Scotia legal system: "In one example," DiMenna continues, "a man was sentenced to a month in prison for strangling his partner; this information was not relayed to the family court responsible for determining child custody."
The Female Chastity mythopoeia are not necessarily the bright stake at the center of a dark and powerful realm, as such, but, rather, the shadowy influence, the Invisible Hand; as I
recently explained:
It depends on how you define reputation. To attend a person's self-perception is an inappropriate application in the rape prevention question. But how one defines other people is exactly the point. If by reputation we mean the esteem we grant other people, yes, that is a key factor.
But it's not all about reputation in that context. It's about the societal myths and attitudes that form the criteria for how some people—far too many, as such—assign reputation and human value.
As long as a society continues to look down on women in such a manner, it will continue to empower rape.
The members of all communities, including nations and whole civilisations, are infused with the prevailing ideologies of those communities. These, in turn, create attitudes of mind which include certain capacities and equally positively exclude others.
The ideologies may be so ancient, so deep-seated or so subtle that they are not identified as such by the people at large. In this case they are often discerned only through a method of challenging them, asking questions about them or by comparing them with other communities.
Such challenge, description, or questioning, often the questioning of assumptions, is what frequently enables a culture or a number of people from that culture to think in ways that have been closed to most of their fellows.
—Emir Ali Khan
And while Gillis might consider "renewed concerns about the moral state of a generation", what his analysis omits is a point
I noted in a slightly different context: This is the world we've made, all of us together, from the beginnings of humanity.
It is within our power to change the courses of our societies; the broader culture simply lacks the will. Indeed, the last word goes to Anonymous, which should not have to explain these points to begin with:
An image of a 15-year-old girl having sex was viral in Cole Harbour District High School. Neither the school nor the police dispute this. By legal definition that image was child pornography. By some estimates, hundreds of individuals have already seen the photograph, including many adults. The police have seen the photograph. The fact that this evidence was disregarded as inappropriate for any kind of arrest by the police is unconscionable.
"What the police are saying to the citizens of Nova Scotia is clear: Having underage students drinking and having sex in your home is not a crime in our community. Photographs of a 15-year-old girls having sex is not child pornography, but if it is, the distribution of that child pornography is not a crime. A 15-year-old girl is capable of giving her consent to sex even after she is inebriated to the point that she vomits while hanging out of a windowit is not sexual assault.
"We urge the RCMP to act like guardians, set the proper example for the young men of Nova Scotia and send a clear message: This behaviour will not be tolerated in our communities. The women and young girls of Nova Scotia should not have to live in fear or be forced to hide evidence of a rape because they will be called whores."
(qtd. in Palmer)
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Notes:
Palmer, Ewan. "Rehtaeh Parsons Suicide: Teen Rape Case Re-Opened, Father Thanks Anonymous". International Business Times. April 16, 2013. IBTimes.co.uk. April 20, 2013. http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/4...arsons-suicide-anonymous-rape-nova-scotia.htm
CBC News. "Teen says he was wrongly named in Rehtaeh Parsons case". April 19, 2013. CBC.ca. April 20, 2013. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...-rehtaeh-parsons-bully-false-accused-boy.html
—————. "Posters go up supporting boys in Rehtaeh Parsons case". April 17, 2013. CBC.ca. April 20, 2013. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-...ns-bullying-rehtaeh-boys-support-posters.html
Gillis, Charlie. "Rehtaeh Parsons and the problem of bystanders". MacLean's. April 18, 2013. Macleans.ca. April 20, 2013. http://www2.macleans.ca/2013/04/18/a-deafening-silence/
Di Menna, Hillary. "WTF Wednesday: Charges worst case scenario for Rehtaeh Parsons' case". This. April 17, 2013. This.org. April 20, 2013. http://this.org/blog/2013/04/17/wtf-wednesday-charges-worst-case-scenario-for-rehtaeh-parsons-case/
