The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.
The verdict for the Stubenville rape trial came down: Guilty. Well the equivlant of guilty in a juvenile court.
Today Big Red did not Roll, today Big Red was dethroned. Like Slim Shady, the Justice System did not give a fuck what Football thought.
The defense's argument was weak if not outright grasping at straws. The main argument the defense had was that it was not rape because the girl did not affirmatively say no.
Of course she doesn't have too, most if not all of us have heard of the date rape drug/roofies that knock a person out. It was a defense doomed to fail. Of course it wasn't the defense's fault, they did their job the best they could in the face of such damning evidence. Sure it was a bit underhanded to attack the girl herself, but that is all they had. The law was not on their side, the evidence was not on their side. It was the only hand they had to play.
But this time, King Football was dethroned. The system actually worked.
However it is not enough that King Football be dethroned. King Football must be guillotined. King Football must be publicly executed. The streets need to flow with the blood of King Football.
As much as I place the responsibility amongst these two, people are to some extent a product of their environment. King Football isn't the sport of football itself, King Football is the privileged position, and special treatment that athletes seem to get in this society. They were held up as special and hence thought they could do what they wanted.
Others think it's all about football and point to the number of former Big Red players on local police forces and with various administrative ties to the program. They blame the misguided principles that put small-town football above everything and have corrupted not just adults but left punk teenagers to believe they are above common decency, let alone the law.People aren't necessarily born fucked up, they become fucked up. In a community where you're held up as a prince, free of accountability, THIS is the kind of shit that happens. Where you're held up as the golden boy/s you can do no wrong, and that seemed to be exactly the case here.
“The players are considered heroes, and that’s pretty pathetic, because they’ve been able to get away with things for years because of it,” Flanagan said. “Everyone just looks the other way.”
“There’s a set of rules that don’t apply to everybody,” he (Bill Miller) said of what he called the favoritism regarding the players. “This has been happening since the early ’80s; this is nothing new. It’s disgusting. I can’t stand it. The culture is not what it should be. It’s not clean.”There was the possibility this whole thing would have been swept under the rug if not for Anonymous blowing the whole thing up and bringing it to national attention.
This might not have happened had the adults not perpetuated this privileged lifestyle. Coach Reno Saccoccia is part of the problem. Simply put this man needs to be fired, he is part of the engine that perpetuates this "culture". By failing to discipline his players he gives the impression of either what their doing is ok, or that if it is not ok Coach will make it all go away.
No basis my ass. Here's the thing, you bench your players when they have done something wrong, regardless of whether they know it or not. That's how you teach them that it is wrong, that is called discipline. Saccoccia himself should be charged with obstruction of justice. Reno Saccoccia is human filth, one of the worst kinds, barely fit to be called human. But I digress...
Saccoccia, pronounced SOCK-otch, told the principal and school superintendent that the players who posted online photographs and comments about the girl the night of the parties said they did not think they had done anything wrong. Because of that, he said, he had no basis for benching those players.
But it isn't just King Football, there's another issue here. The other issue is that quite a bit thought there was anything wrong with what they were doing. It didn't cross the minds of many people that it's not right to post or send around nude pictures of a minor, and, at least at the time it happened, it didn't cross some people that by video recording her rape, they were creating child porn. Sure there were some that knew what was going on and tried to do something about it.
Mark Cole testified that he didn't even think it was rape.
How in the Hell... How in the FUCK do you not know that performing sexual acts on someone without their consent is not rape?!
Then we have "people" (and I use the term loosely) like Michael Nodianos who think the who thing was a joke, just fun and games. Though his future is probably wreaked too given that he had to drop out of Ohio State University after receiving multiple threats.
What the fuck went wrong here?
Where were the parents in all this? Maybe it's because of my East Asian upbringing where you were taught to act with honor and dignity (lest you make the family look bad and get a really bad ass beating for it), but never once would it have ever crossed my mind to take pictures and send them around. Making fun of a drunk girl falling down on herself, sure that's one thing, but taking her clothes off, trying to put your dick in her mouth. Really? This is what happens when you don't beat your kids and keep them in line, in my opinion.
These kids were probably not taught the proper way to treat people and the proper way to carry themselves.
Just watching the Nodianos video and one can tell to some extent there is something of a sense that rape/sexual assault is all just fun and games and the victim to be laughed as the butt of some joke. This isn't just unique to Stubenville, it happens everywhere. That is the other problem this entire fiasco has exposed.
Well rape is not a joke, it is not just fun and games. No more than it is fun and games that I take a chainsaw to your legs and watch you crawl around fucking my carpet up with all your blood and laughing at how you'll never play football again.
Where King Football and seeing rape as just fun and games intersect, is where this whole matter sits. These boys thought they could get away with it. That they could do what ever they wanted to because they were the golden boys of Big Red Football. Then they saw this girl as an object for their amusement, and so here we arrive.
Ultimately though these two got off easy. Though it seems to be more out of mercy from the judge than anything. They should have been tried as adults, if you do a big boy crime, you should do big boy time. These two were 16 when it happened, they knew what they were doing. At least, however, they will be branded with the mark of Sex Offender. A brand that will follow them for quite some time. Personally I don't feel an ounce of pity for these two, even though their futures are probably destroyed at this point. I have two nieces, I can't imagine this kind of thing happening to either of them.
Hopefully they will be made an example of to the rest. That the law does not give a damn if you play varsity football. Reno Saccoccia cannot save you.
But it isn't over yet, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is looking to the possibility of charging more people involved in this incident.
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