Make It RAINN

I read an article over the weekend about a high school girl who killed herself after she got drunk at a party, some of the boys at the party stripped her and wrote slurs all over her body, took photos of her and circulated them via text and Facebook. 

The article talked about a major switch in our culture where the high school boys didn’t see this as a sexual assault, they saw it as a prank. I’m not so sure they thought it was harmless, but they certainly didn’t consider themselves guilty of anything so serious as a sex crime. 

I wonder what has happened that young men don’t understand the difference between a prank and assault and feel that if a female is too drunk to protest that whatever happens to her has her implied consent. 

Factor in that so much of this activity now gets documented and passed around, as if it’s all a joke, and it makes me so glad I didn’t grow up in an era of smart phones or Facebook or social media. With texting and Snapchat and Instagram and Twitter and Facebook, a kid can never get away from the bullying. Her home is no longer a refuge. 

This girl’s story is starting to sound very familiar and the article mentioned several other high school girls who had similarly killed themselves after they were so humiliated by circulating photos of them in compromising positions that they couldn’t figure out a way to face their classmates.

A few days ago was RAINN Day 2013. Rainn, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network, is an anti-sexual violence organization that assists victims of abuse and seeks to educate to prevent further abuse. 

For RAINN Day, more than 300 college campuses participated in programs that highlighted the pervasiveness of sexual assault among college kids.  

RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, a network of more than 1000 local rape treatment hotlines, that ensure that a victim of sexual abuse has someone to talk to 24/7. 

Oct. 7: RAINN  

Why I started this blog

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I’ve been a little undone by some of the harsh comments my Facebook friends and people I follow on Twitter have made about Mindy McCready’s suicide.

Some people have gone so far as to write “good riddance,” because they are so upset about her leaving behind her two young children. As you may know, her youngest son, who is less than a year old, lost his father to suicide as well last month.

Today, another acquaintance on Facebook was railing against McCready for shooting her dog first.  And I mean saying horrible, vitriolic things that I won’t repeat here. He has absolutely no sorrow for her, but he’d mustered up a great deal of sympathy for the innocent dog. From what I’ve read the dog belonged to her boyfriend, the one who killed himself last month, so maybe she thought they could all be reunited. 

I don’t know why she had to kill the dog (and I certainly wish she hadn’t), but I do know this: if you are in so much pain that you are considering killing yourself, then it’s safe to say that you are not thinking clearly. 

The lack of compassion from people I otherwise consider compassionate has been more than a little disturbing. I haven’t responded to any of them, but if I did I would ask if they’ve never known anyone who has committed suicide or someone who was suicidal (maybe they have and this is their way of continuing to work through that understandable anger)? Committing suicide is referred to as a tremendously selfish act and a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I agree with both of those statements, but I can’t go so far as to condemn McCready for her actions, as much as I wish she hadn’t left her children behind (and shot her dog). I’ve known too many people who were in unbearable pain and who felt that taking their own life was the only way to stop the hurting. Of course I was angry that they made that choice, but never without some sense of sadness for them as well.  

I understand that McCready’s dog did nothing wrong and killing him was totally and utterly senseless and beyond comprehension, but no more senseless than taking her own life. Maybe I just know more animal lovers than people lovers, but the folks who seem to hate her for killing her dog are far greater (and more vocal) than the folks who are upset about her deserting her sons or shooting herself.

Today is Chooseday Tuesday, so I’m donating in honor of my friend Rosemary. She loves dogs more than almost anyone I know and yet she has been compassionate about Mindy, commenting about how kind McCready was to others, despite not being able to show herself the same kindness. Her charity is North Shore Animal League, a great organization in New York that has “rescued, rehabilitated and adopted” more than 1 million animals, according to its website.

I'll let singer Chely Wright have the last word. Yesterday she tweeted about McCready, "I will pray for her children and I hope that people are gentle with her memory." Sadly, it's too late for that.

Feb. 19: North Shore Animal League

Why I started this blog. 

**On a little side note, today is post 50! That would sound like a lot if there weren’t still 315 to go. It’s all relative, isn’t it?