No sympathy for rapists

Dear internet: Please stop worrying about how those poor Steubenville shitheads just had their “lives ruined.” Oh jeez, I’m so sorry that when you do something incredibly illegal and wrong, you go to jail and have that as a black mark on your record forever! That’s just too bad how that works, huh?

I got me a whole bunch of pent up snarky rage (snage? Rark?) so I’ma just do a list of the most bullshit things I’m seeing people say over and over again on the ‘tubes today.

They only fingerbanged her

Oh jeez, I guess that makes it OK then! No dicks were inserted into unwilling vaginas, so nothing bad happened, huh? Oh sure, go ahead and whine about how Ohio is one of the few places in the country where “unwilling fingerbangs” are considered rape. You know what? I don’t care. Even if it’s not considered rape in many places, it’s still sexual assault, and still horribly wrong and awful and shitty and INSANELY ILLEGAL and should still result in prosecution.

Now they have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives

Let me be clear on this: I’m not sure I understand the point of sex offender registries at all. It seems to me like once you do your time in jail, that should be it. Do we make murderers register on lists and tell everybody else they killed a dude once? Pretty sure we don’t. So I’m kind of unclear on why sex offender registries exist at all.

BUT. I hate to be one of those “now is not the time” people, because usually that’s bullshit. But seriously. Now is not the fucking time. These shits haven’t even done a day in jail yet for what they did. Let’s not worry about how having to continually register as a sex offender will affect them after they do their time until after they’ve at least started to do their fucking time, I say. How about we worry about any injustice done to them AFTER they pay for the injustice they inflicted on that girl they raped, OK?  I dunno, seems reasonable to me.

You can be forced to register as a sex offender for peeing in public

Uh, OK. So? I mean, sure, that sounds dumb to me. It also sounds dubious and urban legend-y. But whatever, so what? I already said I’m pretty dubious about the concept of sex offender registries in the first place, but granted that they exist and granted that the purpose of them is to warn others that potential sex offenders are nearby, surely RAPISTS are justifiably going to be on those lists, right? So what does it fucking matter that peeing in public can also land you on those lists? Yes that seems wrong, but what the fuck does it have to do with this case? Why are you bringing this up at all? This isn’t even a case of “Now is not the time.”  It’s a case of “Why are you even fucking bringing this up, it has nothing to do with anything we’re talking about asshole.” I believe in the kinder parts of the internet they call this “derailing.”  I’ma just call it what it is, though: Stupid nonsensical douchebaggery.

These poor boys, they had such promising and bright futures, now it’s all ruined!

Yeah. BECAUSE THEY RAPED A GIRL, THAT’S WHY. Stop talking like they were walking down the street and got hit by a bus and now they can never play football again. That would be a sad situation worthy of sympathy. That’s not at all what happened. They raped somebody, now they’re going to jail for it. If their football careers are over because of that, OH FUCKING WELL. Don’t give me that “one mistake” bullshit either. It’s not like their “one mistake” was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or trusting the wrong person, or even doing something they didn’t understand the consequences of. They assaulted a passed out girl at a party, knowing full well the entire time what they were doing and how fucking wrong it was. Then they tried to cover it up afterwards. They are not victims. Stop pretending they are.

She got blackout drunk at a party and–

SHUT UP. Seriously, you can just shut the fuck up right now. If you think that sentence is going anywhere other than to the shitsville of victim blaming, you’re an idiot. It literally does not matter how drunk she was, what she was wearing, or how many partners she’s willingly had in her young life. 100% of the blame for this situation goes to the boys who chose to stick things in her vagina without her permission. End. Of. Fucking. Story.

Fucking hell. This is awful. I’m done.