The Purity Myth (23 page)

i n s tit u ti o n a l i Z i n g b l a m e

The Maryland law that a woman can’t change her mind once she consents to sex was actually based on a case from 1980, which defined rape based on common law that considers women property (that’s right—sadly, as re- cently as twenty-nine years ago, women were still considered the property of their husband or father). In this context, “rape” actually just means the initial “deflowering” of a woman; in fact, the injured party in a rape isn’t even the woman—it’s her father or husband. The decision notes that any act following penetration—the “initial infringement upon the responsible male’s interest in a woman’s sexual and reproductive functions”—can’t constitute rape because “the damage is done” and the woman can never be “re-flowered.”
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Not only is this a good reminder that a lot of laws on the books need a good updating, but it also demonstrates how directly notions about sexual purity affect the way violence against women is perceived, and even prosecut- ed. Women who have had sex can’t be raped, because—as the law said—the “damage is done.” They’re no longer valuable; maybe they’re no longer even women, in fact, but are completely dehumanized.

Devaluing women who have had sex is behind much of the institution- alized victim blaming that’s so pervasive in America. The media in particu- lar is one of the worst offenders; its coverage of violence against women

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gives us an uncomfortable glimpse into how widespread the purity myth actually is, and how it normalizes rape and violence.

The bulk of media response to sexual violence against women is mired in the stereotype of good girls and bad girls—rape victims worthy of sympa- thy and slutty girls who should have known better. The rape and murder of New York City college student Imette St. Guillen proves to be an interesting (though tragic) example of this trend, in that her story reflects both sides of the purity-influenced media coverage.

St. Guillen, a graduate student studying criminal justice, was out cel- ebrating her birthday with a friend the night she was murdered. After her friend went home for the evening, St. Guillen decided to stay out longer and went to a local bar, the Falls. It was later discovered that Darryl Little- john, the Falls’ bouncer, kidnapped, raped, tortured, and murdered the young woman.

The news coverage of St. Guillen’s murder both sexified the story— referring to her as a young, beautiful woman who was brutally murdered*— and blamed her for being out drinking the night she was killed.

The initial, sensationalized headlines made much of St. Guillen’s physical appearance: “Beautiful Co-ed Found Murdered,” screamed the
New York Post,
calling her a “petite, raven-haired beauty.”
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Th
New York Daily News’
headline was similar: “City beauty slain by beast: Tortured & dumped by road.”
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But when the media found out that St. Guillen was killed after drinking alone at a bar late at night, the tone of the coverage changed considerably.

* Edgar Allan Poe once said (disturbingly), “The death of a beautiful woman is unques- tionably the most poetical topic in the world.” That quote always comes to mind when I see how the media unrelentingly plays out that narrative.

Now headlines read: “Slain Student Left Bar Alone After 4 am” and “Fear- less in the city: Some women still party as if invulnerable.”
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The focus shifted from the murder investigation to (once again) girls gone wild—young women “putting themselves at risk*” by going out to bars and drinking.

Matt Lauer on NBC’s
Today
show, for example, did a feature segment on the dangers of women going to bars:

Bars are usually safe spots to gather with friends. But the combination of al- cohol and strangers can be dangerous, especially for young women. Cases like the murder of Imette St. Guillen and the disappearance of Natalee Holloway are important reminders that sometimes a night out can end tragically.
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NBC sent a security specialist out to a bar to “find out how vulnerable women can be.” CBS’s
The Early Show
brought on former prosecutor Wendy Murphy and Atoosa Rubenstein, editor-in-chief of
Seventeen
magazine, to discuss St. Guillen and how women can stay safe. The conversation focused on girls’ going out and drinking.

“But something like 85 percent of all crime has some connection to al- cohol or drugs, so it’s important as a matter of criminal policy-making that we talk about the role of alcohol and talk about drinking less,” said Murphy.
†
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St. Guillen’s story is a textbook case of how concern can quickly turn to blame. One radio host, John DePetro of Boston’s WRKO, said on his

* It’s akin to women “getting themselves” raped. The actual perpetrator is rarely spoken of; it’s another variation of “she was asking for it.”

†
Warnings about going to bars and drinking are rarely levied at men, despite the fact that

in rape cases involving alcohol, it’s often the
perpetrator
who has been drinking. Why not tell men not to get drunk so they don’t rape?

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morning talk show that St. Guillen’s being out alone at 4:00 am was “asking for trouble,” and that women should use “common sense.

“As tragic as it is, your first reaction is she should not have been out alone at 3 or 4 . . . in the morning because look at what can happen,” DePetro said.
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Wall Street Journal
writer Naomi Schaefer Riley topped it all, however, when she penned a piece whose headline was . . . well, let’s just call it trans- parent: “Ladies, You Should Know Better.”
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Though Riley wrote that the murder was a tragedy, she made sure to point out that St. Guillen “was last seen in a bar, alone and drinking at 3 am,” and “that a twenty-four-year-old woman should know better.” Riley went on to call women who drink and later get assaulted “moronic,” and noted that if women wanted to avoid getting raped, they should simply “be wary of drunken house parties.”

Of course, Riley’s sentiment and victim blaming are nothing new. Au- thor Katie Roiphe based her career on them. Her 1994 book,
The Morning After: Fear, Sex, and Feminism,
questioned whether date rape really exists and argued that women are in part responsible if they are forced into having sex after drinking or using drugs.
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Why aren’ t college women responsible for their own intake of alcohol or

drugs? A man may give her drugs, but she herself decides to take them. If we assume that women are not all helpless and naive, then they should be held

responsible for their choice to drink or take drugs. If a woman’s “judgment is impaired” and she has sex, it isn’ t necessarily always the man’s fault; it isn’ t necessarily always rape.
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Let’s face it—this is “she was asking for it” trussed up in language

about agency and responsibility. Now, should we treat women as indepen- dent agents, responsible for themselves? Of course. But being responsible has nothing to do with being raped. Women don’t get raped because they were drinking or took drugs. Women do not get raped because they weren’t care- ful enough. Women get raped because
someone raped them.
Blogger Melissa McEwan, who wrote in 2007 about her own assault, said it best:

I was sober; hardly scantily clad (another phrase appearing once in the article). I was wearing sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt; I was at

home; my sexual history was, literally, nonexistent—I was a virgin; I

strug gled; I said no. There have been times since when I have been walk- ing home, alone, af ter a few drinks, wearing something that might have shown a bit of leg or cleavage, and I wasn’ t raped.
The difference was not in what I was doing.
The dif ference was the presence of a rapist.
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Ah, yes, the
rapist.
Remember him?

r a P i s t s g o n e w i l d

Victim blaming shrouded in empowerment rhetoric has become the norm when it comes to sexual assault and drinking—especially when assaults concern young women; to see this trend play out, you need look no further than the girls-gone-wild “trend,” which the media is so very afraid of.

But rather than waste too much time on the media panic about girls’ supposedly being promiscuous, let’s talk about the
real
Girls Gone Wild— the company. The Girls Gone Wild (GGW) empire—a video and online porn business that brings in more than $40 million a year—is arguably one of the most blatantly sexually predatory groups in America today. Quite

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literally, it’s a roving band of would-be rapists and assaulters who get treated like celebrities wherever they go.

The GGW crew travels from town to town, partnering with local bars and clubs to lure in young women who want to be on camera. And while many people still think GGW is primarily a Mardi Gras–type breast- flashing enterprise (which is certainly what it started out as), the company now deals in much more hardcore pornography. Though, of course, the sto- ry remains the same: The camera crew seeks drunk girls willing* to bare all, and maybe do a lot more, on video.

GGW’s founder, Joe Francis, has incurred numerous rape and sexual assault allegations.
†
The most recent include a charge of misdemeanor sex- ual battery for groping an eighteen-year-old woman in California, a possi- ble role in the 2004 drugging and rape of a college student in Miami Beach, Florida, and a community service sentence as part of a guilty plea for taping

underage girls.
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But Francis is not a lone predator—the whole GGW family likes to get in on the fun, it seems. In 2006, a GGW cameraman was arrested for raping a seventeen-year-old Ohio girl in the back of the company’s “party bus.”
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In 2008, video crew boss Matthew O’Sullivan, thirty-seven, was arrested for sexually assaulting a twenty-year-old Long Island woman—also on the party bus.
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This isn’t a coincidence—it’s a strategy.

In an article about the Ohio rape, Carl Moss, an event coordinator who has worked with GGW on several occasions, noted that the company’s staff acts in a distinctly “predatory” and “systematic” way.

* How willing these young women actually are is hard to determine. As you’ll see in the following stories, their consent is often contested, and it’s debatable how “willing” they can actually be to sign a legal contract when they’re so sauced they can barely stand.

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And these are only the incidents that have been reported.

As the night progresses, the drunker the girls get , they’ ll start separat-

ing them. They’ ll say, “Hey, you guys want to come on the bus?” And the girls’ ll say, “ Yeah!” And they’ ll take three down to the bus. But when they get to the bus, they’ ll say, “Well, we can only take one at a time because