maybe the first time Myspace proved useful

kinda makes the prior "debate" over whether youth really are dumberer today seem a bit fastidious and dare I say, PC.

They are.

Ugh, fuckers.

I bet you a hundred dollars that these little hoodlums haven't read Invisible Man and don't know who Hitler was...

@3,

Seconded.

Thank God for stupid criminals.

"Myspace.com. Houser of rape schemes since 1998"

See, social networking is useful. Both for criminals - and victims.

Also helps to explain the 1 out of 100 Americans in jail.

Umm, not to blame the victim here, but getting in a car with 4 complete strangers and then getting blind drunk with them is pretty fucking stupid.

That said, I hope they do try the juveniles as adults and throw the book at 'em.

I hope she's not lying a la the Duke lacrosse team, Kobe Bryant, etc. And if she's not cut their balls off already.

Uh, @9 Westside forever? You are blaming the victim with those comments.

So, Westside forever, if you're not trying to blame the victim, then what the fuck are you doing? Maybe, just once, we could focus on the the actions of the fucking rapists instead of tsk-tsking about what the victim did.

The only solution to this problem is for Charles Mudede to violently devour a dog-eared paperback copy of "A Clockwork Orange," chase it down with "Foucault for Dummies," then shit out the digested results in the back of a Metro bus, preferably the #49 when one of Schmader's hot tipper flunkies is on board.

That'll make the kids behave!

@9: she can be as stupid & as drunk as she wants. that doesn't excuse gang rape one bit.

sentence them to chemical castration until 40.

@9 - There will be plenty of time to turn this into a cautionary tale AFTER those filthy fucking rapists are sent to jail for a very, very long time (and I hope to God they're tried and convicted as adults!)

According to the article, they're being charged as juveniles. I'm not one to advocate charging minors as adults, but I've read one too many of these fucked up stories. Lock these evil fucks in a real prison and let them go through what they put this girl through.

I'm certainly not excusing rape @14. If the evidence holds up, those boys may end up in Monroe, or Walla Walla if they're unlucky. And they'd deserve it.

What I'm saying is that the girl in question made a series of conscious decisions that put her in harm's way.

@9 and 17,

There's nothing in the article to indicate that the girl didn't know the boys beforehand. I challenge you to go to MySpace and find a specific person's profile without knowing that person's name.

On another note, you are an idiot.

@10,

You can't read, can you? The boys bragged about it on their MySpace pages.

There's also no evidence that Kobe Bryant's accuser lied. His "oops, my bad" statement released after she dropped the charges seems to indicate that she was telling the truth.

there are way too many teenage boys in the world. time to cull the herd, PRONTO!!

@9 and 17

"What I'm saying is that the girl in question made a series of conscious decisions that put her in harm's way."

well, that's much better put than your previous heartless comment of the girl making "pretty fucking stupid" decisions.

your still an idiot, though.

19: Of course I can read. I can type, too. Another talent would be answering stupid questions. See? I can do it all.

Just because someone brags about something -- especially a teenage boy -- doesn't mean it's true.

And yes, 9 is right that it is a very dumb idea for a teenage girl to get drunk with four strange guys, just like you wouldn't leave a Porsche running with unlocked doors outside of a 7-11 in a bad neighborhood.

And where were the parents in all of this? Underage kids out drinking and allegedly raping/getting raped... shouldn't they be doing their homework?

Please let them be tried as adults.

@6: Myspace didn't exist in 1998.

Well, to be fair, it existed; it just wasn't launched until 1999.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace

@22,

If they were bragging about any other criminal activity, you would acknowledge the likelihood of their guilt, but since they're accused of rape, then according to you, there is always the possibility (or likelihood) that the victim is merely a crazy bitch.

This is evidenced by you dredging up the Duke case. One actual crazy bitch makes a false allegation, therefore all rape accusers are crazy bitches until proven otherwise.

Again, there's nothing in the article that indicates the boys were complete strangers -- another indication of your poor reading comprehension.

And thank you for comparing a human being to a piece of property. I was wondering how long it would take for someone to do that in this thread.

How about this. If a teenage boy went out drinking with a bunch of other boys and those kids beat the shit out of him, would you assign none of the blame, some of the blame, or all of the blame to the victim? Are teenage girls supposed to be more intelligent, world wise, and wary than teenage boys simply by default? Are boys and men so incapable of not raping women that the responsibility of not letting rape happen falls exclusively on girls and women?

@9: where does it say that the boys were complete strangers?
it sounds more like she knew them (she found their myspaces after all). obviously 17 year olds drinking isnt that uncommon.

you know, my now ex had a sociology class with a lot of asian-americans where their ethic was that the male was a tiger... to be guarded against. I'm just sayin'...

These young men are dreadful, no doubt about it. But I really don't think "kids these days" are any more stupid or evil than they've ever been.

I graduated from high school in 1983, and there was a gang rape at a party my school's wrestling team had.

Back in 60's, my dad had to break up a non-chaperoned party at our neighbor's house where a bunch of guys had cornered a girl in her parent's bedroom. If her little sisters hadn't come running over, it might have turned into something really ugly.

Of course, we didn't have social networking sites back then or a news culture that salivates over this sort of stuff, so it wasn't national news. And cops were very hesitant to do anything about rape back then. Unless they actually stumbled upon it, it wasn't a "serious" crime.

Once again, the sexist bullshit on Slog amazes me.

You know, I think its possible to admit that a rape victim may have done something stupid or inadvisable without in any way condoning the actions of the rapist.

For example, if I leave my purse on the seat of my car with my car unlocked, well, that was a stupid thing to do, and I should realize that it means there is a higher chance than usual of my purse being stolen. But it doesn't mean that the person who stole it shouldn't be prosecuted.

I think the reason people get so up in arms about blaming the victim is that it is THEN used to try to excuse the rapist. But as long as you're not saying "it was stupid to get in a car with 4 guys, therefore she must have been asking for it and they shouldn't be arrested," but rather "it was stupid to get in a car with 4 guys but those guys still bear responsbility for their actions and should be punished," then I think its fair.

It doesn't mean the rapists didn't commit a crime or that the victim shouldn't be helped.

@31,

The thing is that the bullshit comes out primarily with rape cases and it mostly comes from men who don't have to worry about rape, who are overly eager to make excuses for rape, who don't know the slightest fucking thing about what it's like to be a woman, and who would be perfectly happy to excuse mistakes made by 16-year-old boys, but never 16-year-old girls.

@22

to answer your question "where were the parents?"

According to the news story, that the mother of the 17 year old girl was at home. When her daughter came in to the house 3 hours after being picked up by some friends, she paid enough attention to her daughter to be concerned and take her immediately to the hospital.

Did your mom accompany you everytime you hung out with friends when you were 17? She didn't ignore her daughter running off for three days, she was gone for three hours.

It looks to me that the mom in this story acted appropriately.

As for the boys parents, who knows. But at the age of 17 years old, its not surprising that the boys parents weren't mentioned. They were probably also at home thinking that their sons were just hanging out with some friends for a few hours.

There's no indication in the article if she knew the guys or not. Let's leave that aside.

Sounds like the Mom acted correctly. You can't watch your kids 24/7 but you can bring them to the hospital if they come home looking like they've been gang raped.

The girl may have been stupid but we can't really tell. If these are some strangers that she met online then got into a car and got drunk with them she was being stupid by putting herself in a dangerous situation (not even to mention if the driver was drinking too). If however they were friends of hers (which doesn't seem likely since she had to look them up on myspace) it's reasonable that she would feel safe hanging out with them.

The boys were evil worthless scumbags! No question here. Nobody in this post has implied anything less. At the very least they should be prosecuted and spend a long time in jail for it at best they should have their balls cut off and possibly their cocks too to make sure this never happens again.

keshmeshi,
Nobody here has tried to take any blame off of the scumbag guys. They should absolutely be prosecuted for rape and whatever other crimes they can hit them with. However, it's important to make note that if she didn't know these kids she was putting herself in a dangerous situation and she, and other women, need to learn from her mistakes.

A few years ago I took a personal defense class. One thing I learned was how to escape from holds and kick the shit out of people trying to hurt me. The lesson we spent more time on, however, was how to avoid dangerous situations. Don't walk down dark alleys at night. Stay vigilant when walking in a bad neighborhood. Notice if someone's following me and if so get to a populated area. I'm responsible for my own safety. I try to avoid dangerous situations.

Both women and men need to know how to avoid dangerous situations. It is absolutely a dangerous situation for a woman to get into a car with 4 drunk juveniles and hopefully both she and other women can learn from that mistake (assuming she didn't know the guys which I've already said we can't prove).

People seem to be confusing "stupid" with "naive."
One is an insult, the other is more of an observation.

Colin, I understand your argument, but should women never be able to hang out with male friends? Is it a crime to be young and trusting?

Also, who hasn't done a little underage drinking?

*General Rant*
This blame the victim stuff only crops up when its a rape crime... not sure why, but people are eager to prove how it would NEVER happen to them, because they are more smart/careful/savvy then other girls. It MUST be the girl's fault or the mother's fault, because bad things don't happen to good people.

I'm sorry, but rape can happen to anyone. Unfortunately it most often happens to people who are young, disadvantaged, or both. This makes it easier for us to turn around and judge them for the actions of their rapist.

But don't worry! If we lock all teenage girls in the house after school there would never be rape! And OMG what if she was wearing a short skirt! Totally asking for it. Maybe they should all wear burqas...