Putting new labels on mislabeled terms
By Tara Nykyforiak
Photos by Vaikunthe Banerjee
What do the tragedies of Amanda Todd, Rehtaeh Parsons, Audrie Pott and the Steubenville rape trial conjure up? For one, the disheartening state of rape culture in our North American society. Second, a re-questioning of the impacts cyberbullying has on its adolescent victims. And third, the painful awareness surrounding teenage suicide.
Outside of the case involving Port Coquitlam teenager Amanda Todd, rape was carried out by adolescent males toward their intoxicated female counterparts. In a society that teaches “no means no,” these young men took the absence of a no as their opportunity to do what they wanted to their victims.
It is not good enough to simply say “no means no” without further elaborating what that really means. No can mean a verbal expression of the word, but it also means being able to speak that word, and when a person is not in their right mind to express their consent (ie. under the influence of alcohol), it is the responsibility of the other person involved to step back and stop from going any further. This should not be up for debate, and needs to be better communicated to the younger members of our society in order for these misconceptions and episodes of rape are not perpetuated.
In all but the Steubenville rape case, each of the victims saw no alternative but to take their own lives after nude photos were spread of them without their consent. These young women were victimized twice over when the rights to their bodies were violated — once when they were raped, and twice when their rapists distributed their private images with classmates.
It is never okay to take a photograph of a person unable to provide proper consent, and this message needs to be better communicated to adolescents. So much of a teenager’s life is conducted on the internet, and the potential to torment and cause pain is more and more powerful.
When a young woman’s private photos are shared online, not only does bullying occur, but so do many more grave problems. This is serious and criminal, and needs to be regarded as such. I can say that I side with Stephen Harper when he says, “what we are dealing with in some of these circumstances is simply criminal activity. It is youth criminal activity, it is violent criminal activity, it is sexual criminal activity and it is often internet criminal activity.” This is further exemplified when violent and sexual youth criminal activity results in the suicides of multiple female adolescents. So now the question is: why do we continue to provide our teenagers with the technologies appropriate to commit these crimes without the direct and open communication necessary to prevent them from happening?
It is obvious to me this communication is not being taken seriously. If it was, Todd, Parsons, and Pott would not have been driven to suicide when those who distributed their photos were not seriously dealt with. Is it not enough that the victims came forward to speak about the wrong that had been committed against them? That the rights to their bodies were taken away the night criminals spread private and damaging photos of them without their consent?
By stepping forward, these young women knew the crimes that were carried out against them, but the schools and police did not treat them as such. Just as anti-bullying campaigns are made, so should the awareness of these violent sexual crimes being carried out by young people today. These incidents are out there in our media, so the excuse of lacking knowledge does not exist. It is time we addressed the issue and call it by what it really is, a crime.
