If you look at the lyrics, the opening segment is repetition that girls run the world. The first verse talks about women being powerful for buying their own drinks in clubs and how good they are at “this”. At the end of the verse she says, “Boy i’m just playing; Come here baby; Hope you still like me; If you hate me; My persuasion can build a nation; Endless power our love we can devour; You’ll do anything for me” This is said at the end of every verse. So even though the verse itself is speaking positive and powerful things about women, she backtracks, asks for permission and forgiveness from the males.

Throughout the video, the imagery channels the lyrics. When she says “Boy I’m just playing; Come here baby” she gets on her knees and crawls under his legs. Continuously throughout the video she is scantily clad and in provocative positions. She talks about running the world through persuasion while she dances seductively.

This video does not demonstrate the real power of a woman, or really any power at all. It represents women being used as a sex object. It represents women being subservient to men, and using how they are viewed as sex objects to ask for forgiveness for attempting to be powerful and independent.

Rihanna’s video “Only Girl” has the same dynamic, but in a more obvious way. She claims to want the power of being the only girl, but throughout the song and video she defines herself by whether or not she is that only girl and has the love from that man.

True power of a woman comes from things that on a basic level are unrelated to sex appeal. True power of a woman comes from being able to set and keep boundaries. A strong woman sees the opposite sex as an equal, not as a lesser or greater force than herself. She has true conviction in her own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and wisdom. Strong women can be college grads or high school grads. They can have their GED or work at a McDonald’s. They can dance at clubs or dance in ballrooms. What they do for a living or their hobbies do not make or break them as a strong woman. It is their internal convictions and their everyday acts that creates the strength.

In contrast to these, consider a very sexual yet truly empowering female video: Lady Gaga’s “Love Game”.  Lady Gaga does a great job at portraying choice, boundaries, respect, and mutual sexuality. The video is equal when it comes to males and females appearance and actions. Gaga both denies and accepts sexual contact. However, it is said in the lyrics and body language of the song that it is sexual contact for sexual contact, not for manipulative or coercive reasons.

I worry about the women in the music industry making video that portray pseudo-dominant women because whether we like it or not, our female youth watch these video’s and they idolize and look up to these women. I think it is important that in order for real change to happen, it has to happen at all levels, even celebrity status.

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Although I like the lyrics of Beyonce’s new song, the visual message and the words are at odds in a way that should give us pause for thought.

The visual message equates power with sexuality over and over again. Even as the words praise college graduates and their power, the visual image is a woman on her knees butt up in the air, sexy but submissive. The lyrics say that we have the power of persuasion, but there are no scenes of women talking, writing, or teaching or any other non-sexual form of persuasion.

Finally, consider the closing image. The closing image is not women in charge but women standing at attention offering a salute to the very riot guard which in an earlier frame had attacked them. The men do not offer a salute back. Rule or submission? Is this song about female empowerment? Or an unintentional satire of common notions of female empowerment?

Nineteen century America denied women the vote, but that didn’t stop William Ross Wallace from bolding proclaiming that “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world‘. Simply proclaiming that women have power does not make it so. As Malcolm Harris writes in the Huffington Post:

As a volunteer and supporter of the CARE organization that works tirelessly on behalf of empowering women and girls around the globe, I know firsthand these lyrics simply are not based on fact. Without getting on my soap box, it is a fact that if we don’t collectively do more to assist organizations like CARE, these young girls may never have an opportunity to contribute to society, let alone run the world.

Women need more than words and pep talks to have power. Without action the only difference between Beyonce and Wallace is the presumed source of power. Wallace in the 1850′s credited motherhood. Today it is sex.

Throughout history woman’s sexuality has been granted almost magical power even when real women of their time had little control over their fates. Helen of Troy is credited with starting the Trojan war. Christopher Marlowe (1590) called her the “face that launched a thousand ships”. Yet for all her power, women in ancient Greece were kept cloistered and not allowed to go out on their own. Cleopatra’s beauty supposedly kept her in charge of Egypt for many years, but it needs to be remembered that the Roman world of her time required nearly all women to be under the guardianship of a man: her father, husband or sometimes sibling.

Despite claims to the contrary, the alleged power of sexuality is seriously limited. The exercise of power requires the ability to control access to rewards. Sexuality could be powerful, but only in a world where women have full control of how much access is offered and when.

So long as society continues to believe that any woman that uses her sexual power to entice cannot be raped then sexual power is not true power.  Sexual power cannot control its rewards because society assumes any attempt to create power through sexual interest or limited access is also an open invitation to take it all.

Until we can successfully prosecute the man who rapes a woman in a sexy dress who is belly dancing on the bar half drunk or the boardroom exec wearing a stylish dress with a V-neck practically down to her belly button, sexual power is not going to make women rule the world or even give them equal footing.   It simply makes them loose the right to set any boundaries at all.

When women are regularly tarred and feathered in the media for having dared called rape on a powerful sports hero or banker, it is obvious where the real power lies and it isn’t with the women as women.   From Roman Polanski to Strauss-Kahn even a hint of a woman’s sex appeal makes her into someone that “wanted it” rather than someone from whom it was taken.    Perhaps it would be different if the woman were also a famous director or banker?  One would hope, but we can say for certain that simply being sexy isn’t outranking money or fame any time soon.   Where we place blame in “my word against yours” situations tells us a lot about our real perceptions of power.

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Looking back, there can be no question that he did something awful. It was a terrible thing to do to a young girl. But it was also 25 years ago — 26 years next month. And, honestly, the publicity surrounding it was so traumatic that what he did to me seemed to pale in comparison….

I know there is a price to pay for running. But who wouldn’t think about running when facing a 50-year sentence from a judge who was clearly more interested in his own reputation than a fair judgment or even the well-being of the victim? … My attitude surprises many people. That’s because they didn’t go through it all; they don’t know everything that I know. People don’t understand that the judge went back on his word…..

The one thing that bothers me is that what happened to me in 1977 continues to happen to girls every day, yet people are interested in me because Mr. Polanski is a celebrity. That just never seems right to me. It makes me feel guilty that this attention is directed at me, when there are certainly others out there who could really use it.

Looking back at all the verbage spilled over the Polanski rape case I’m wondering why so little is being written on these questions. We say child rape should be punished strongly because it is so hurtful to victims. But aren’t we also hurting a victim by ignoring her questions? The first rule of compassion is to give what a person needs and not what we want or expect them to need.

Rape and the media. Geimer declares that the media treatment was more traumatic than the rape. Was she merely exaggerating? Should we not take her at her word? She seems to mean it. In October, 2009, shortly after Polanski’s arrest she was back in the news, pleading to be left alone and warning that the media circus that accompanies celebrity rapes discourages victims of celebrities from filing complaints.

Rape media coverage can be brutal, especially when the alleged rapist is a celebrity. Anyone following the shenanigans of Ben Roethlisberger in the US or Jack Tweed in the UK knows this. To see just how brutal, take a look at our in depth review of the trial coverage and scroll down to the description of the Daily Mail’s equal opportunity slam. Or alternative enter “Ben Roethlisberger Andrea McNulty” into google. Even when the coverage isn’t hostile, excessive attention can be very disruptive. She is raising a very important point and she is being ignored.

I’m not the only victim in town. We’ve also largely ignored Geimer’s worry that society marginalizes rape unless there is a celebrity involved. There are other cases that have just as much or more need for attention than hers.

Geimer isn’t the only one whose raised the question. Way back in September, ABC interviewed UCLA law professor Peter Arnella. Why, he asked, would a prosecutor spend so much energy and money going after a one-time offender from 30 years ago when it is cash strapped? The prosecutor brushed it aside as a case where principle matters more than economics: “offenders don’t get to choose their punishment”.

But in this case, do principles really matter more than economics? What is the opportunity cost of pursuing Polansky? How many below-the-poverty-line kids have abusers that aren’t being prosecuted because it would divert resources from the Polanski case? How many prosecutions are only half prepared because there isn’t enough money budgeted for the case? How many local crimes are we going to prevent by spending money on legal sparring with Polanski rather than on locking up that local guy breaking parole by hanging around outside of school playgrounds?

A deal is a deal. Geimer contends that the judge made a promise and then reneged on it. Lies and broken promises by an authority figure are a key element of Geimer’s rape complaint. They are a key element of almost any non-violent rape. Assuming she is telling the truth about a deal, is it any wonder she should react negatively to a judge’s broken promises? Is she being overly sensitive? Or are we minimizing? Can we really afford to treat her concerns about judicial deception lightly?

Is this really about Polanski? If we think the original deal gave too light a sentence, perhaps then we should be asking why the prosecutor made that deal in the first place?

A 90-day sentence for a drug facilitated rape of a minor should make us mad. But we shouldn’t take that anger out on the victim. We should place it where it belongs: on a judge who thought that Polanski deserved no more than a slap on the wrist. The transcript from sentencing reads:

The probation report discloses that although just short of her 14th birthday at the time of the offense, the prosecutrix was a well developed young girl who looked older than her years; and regrettably not unschooled in sexual matters. She has a 17 year old boyfriend, with whom she had sexual intercourse at least twice prior to the offense involved. The probation report further reveals that the prosecutrix was not unfamiliar with the drug quaalude, she having experimented with it as early as her tenth or eleventh year……..However, although the prosecutrix was not an inexperienced and unsophisticated young girl, this of course was not a license to the defendant, a man of the world, in his forties, to engage in an act of unlawful sexual intercourse with her

Do you see the hint of “it isn’t rape unless she’s a virgin” ?

A judge who truly understood rape would not care whether Geimer had tried sex or drugs before. The only thing that should have mattered was the gap in their ages. In essence the judge is saying “yeah, it is wrong, but not wrong-wrong. Sure, Polanski shouldn’t have done it, but It isn’t like we are spoiling a pure innocent child. He didn’t introduce her to sex or Quaaludes.” Is it any wonder the judge gave such a light sentence? Isn’t it time the State own up to its own mistakes?

Geimer wants the case closed because a deal is a deal. Polanski wants testimony about the sentencing decisions unsealed so he can prove a deal is a deal. The State wants to keep them sealed. Why? If the State behaved itself, what does it have to fear?

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Given the high publicity of this case we decided this might be a good opportunity to take a good look at how rape is reported. Feminists often accuse the media of biased reporting in rape cases, but is this true? Most journalists try to do their job well. Perhaps rape cases are so much he said/she said that there really is no fair way to report them?

We reviewed the top 9 newspapers in the UK (as measured by readership) for their coverage of a recent rape trial looking at articles dating from the initial arrest in September 2009 to the acquittal on April 26. These included: The Sun, The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Star, The Daily Express, The Guardian, The Independent, and The Financial Times. Here is what we found.

Of the top 9 papers, all covered the story except the Financial Times. Of course, they likely had much more important scandals to deal with.

Not a single one of those papers called Jack Tweed an accused rapist or even an alleged rapist – ever. One (the Mirror) even published an opinion piece arguing the case should be ignored until a jury decided it because of the long history of dodgy rape claims against celebrities who were in fact innocent. On the other hand every single on of the top papers that covered the story repeatedly called the woman who reported the rape an “alleged victim”. There were no exceptions, not even for the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian and the Independent, all three of which usually consider themselves miles above the yellow journalism fray.

Perhaps this is because there is no good way to refer to a rape victim when the case turns on whether or not there was consent? No, we can’t explain this bias that way because there are a good many terms one can use to refer to the one who filed the complaint: complainant, woman, teen, student, Crown’s witness, lead witness. The correct and unbiased legal term is “complainant” so why not use it? Is it too technical? No. It is used for non-rape cases. Why make an exception for rape cases?

In the lower tier magazines, “alleged victim” wasn’t the only biased terminology. Three of the top newspapers (The Sun, The Daily Mirror and The Daily Star) used incendary and dismissive terms like “cried rape”, “Jack girl” “Tweed girl“, “slut taunt“, “threesome shame“.

The Daily Mail also used the term, “cried rape” but only in stories about the acquittal. An acquittal is not proof of innocence or false allegations. It merely means that there is at least some nagging doubts. Legally justifying the claim of “cried rape” would require a second trial to prove a deliberate intent to decieve or harm another. Of course, no such thing has happened, but the Daily Mail sees no need to qualify the accusation with “allegedly cried rape”. However, there is no incentive here for care. Since the complainant is anonymous, she can’t sue for slander.

Bias was also evident in editorial decisions about what parts of the trial testimony to include in articles. All of the top papers covering the trial did a fairly thourough job of reporting the defense testimony and the cross examination lead by the defense. The coverage of the prosecutions case was much more haphazard. To get the full picture one needed to read all 8 top newspapers. One gets the impression that the reporters or their editors were just not all that interested in what the Crown had to say to prove its case. Consider but two examples:

The top four papers (The Sun , The Daily Mail, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Star ) all reported the defense’s charge that the complainant made up the rape charge because a friend had called her a “little slut”. The Independent reported the same claim using less loaded language “ashamed”. All told there were at least four points where the Crown or its witnesses rebutted this claim, but not a single paper listed all four points.

The Daily Mail reported that a friend not the complainant first came to the conclusion that the complainant was raped. After her friends had brought her out of the house, a friend testified that the complainant asked: “If someone tries to have sex with you and you say, ‘No’, is that right? Her friends had to explain that what happened to her was not only wrong, but rape. The Sun and The Mirror both have a version of this story but they stop the story at the point where she asks the question. The role of her friends in helping to recognize that a crime had occurred was omitted.

In addition, the Independent reported that the complainant explicitly denied the charge under oath.  The Sun reported that the complaint denied ever having heard “little slut” . The Mirror reported that a friend confirmed under oath that neither she nor her friends had ever said “little slut”. Not a single paper reported all four points of counter evidence.

The defense also tried to prove consensual sex had taken place by claiming that the complaintant said “Yes” when a friend came by while sexual activities were on-going and inquired if she was OK. This charge was reported in the most widely read paper in the UK (The Sun) without challenge. Only two papers, each with only a fraction of the Sun’s circulation reported the reason: The Daily Star (#5 – 20%) and The Independent (#8 – < 10%) . They reported that the complainant had said under oath that Jack Tweed had told her how to answer and she was too afraid to do otherwise.

Sometimes bias also reared its head even when a paper appeared to be even handed. The Daily Mail (#2)’s notion of non-bias could roughly be described as “equal opportunity slam”. In a pair of articles run the day after the acquittal , it summarized the case thusly:

Tweed may not be a rapist, but he is many other things: a violent thug, with two jail sentences under his belt for grievous bodily harm, a lothario of the worst kind, a man frittering his life away boozing in pubs and clubs and indulging in casual sex with vulgar girls desperate for even Z-list celebrity status. It was a cry of rape from such a girl…

The articles viewed both Jack Tweed and the woman he allegedly raped with a great degree of cynicism, however they neglected to consider that Jack Tweed has hard publicly verifiable evidence in favor of his sleeziness and the complainant had at best insinuation.

Jack Tweed has two convictions for criminal assault – 1 on an 16 year old boy that earned him 18 months in jail and one on an adult taxi driver that earned him 12 weeks. Jack Tweed has publicly declared to the press his intention to make money off of this trial. Jack Tweed has not enrolled in university. His own father says he is not interested in working hard. His job, club promoter, leverages the noteriety of his criminal behavior and his marriage to reality TV show star Jane Goody in the last month of her fight with cervical cancer.

To balance the score, it insinuates or directly accuses the complainant of money mongering, glitter mongering, and being a girl without a future. But it neglects to mention counter evidence or point out possible biases in the private individuals making those insinuations.

Unlike Tweed, the young woman has never made a public declaration that she intends to earn money from this. The sole evidence for this insinuation comes from Jack Tweed’s publicity manager who explains the rape charges saying: “he has been a target for girls trying to make money off of him”. It is puzzling why this even deserved mention in a Daily Mail article because successful criminal charges result in jail time for the accused, not money for the victim. Furthermore, the young woman has never waived her anonymity, so one can’t even say she was looking for her hour of fame. The statement is at best illogical and at worst slanderous.

In support of celebrity mongering, it cites a girl who is “one of her circle” who makes a general statement about her belief that girls often cry rape because they are wannabees who have no job and no future:

Do you know how many times girls round here say they’ve been raped?’ says one of her circle. ‘They do it to save face. These girls are just desperate to be famous. They want to have sex with celebrities and footballers. ‘They’re not educated. They don’t want a job or a career. They want to be WAGs and have nice homes and nice cars.

That of course leaves the impression that even her friends are against her. However, it is highly questionable how well this alleged member of her circle actually knows the young woman because the one thing this young woman is not is a woman with no future. She is consistently described as a student and is the daughter of a businessman in Hertfordshire and had enough money to party at a posh club in Mayfair. It also neglects to mention that when the defense accused her of celebrity mongering under oath, she firmly rejected the idea. Good reporting requires representing both sides of the story on the strength of the evidence.

Another disturbing trend was the total lack of background information in any of the articles, even in serious newspapers like the Independent or The Guardian. The closest anyone came to background information was actually the Sun and the Mirror, both of whom spent two short paragraphs on the testimony of Greta Forster who explained how a person could be raped without having defensive wound.

The lack of background information is notable on three accounts. First, it is quite common during major trials to interview experts in domestic abuse and child abuse during major domestic violence and child abuse cases. Second, a recent and well publicized study by the Haven underscored the prevalence of misinformation and acceptance of rape myths amongst Londerers.

Thirdly, assumptions about how rape victims typically act played a crucial role in defense arguments. Many of these assumptions flew in the face of clinical experience with rape survivors, but not a single newspaper presented background information about “typical” victim reactions.

One wonders how informed the reporters and their editors were about rape. Were these junior reprorters who hadn’t yet learned the importance of background information? If so, why didn’t the editors send these articles back? Or ask for a supplemental background article? One also also how active the prosecution itself was in making that the public understood how to assess this case. This case was a media circus. The courts can’t simply turn a blind eye to that.

But it also raises questions about how we effect social change. Does the anti-rape community need to be doing more to raise journalist awareness of these issues? Activism often focuses on high risk groups: teaching risk reduction to potential victims, raising bystander awareness rape supportive attitudes and behaviors, or teaching sexual initiators how to recognize the presence and absense of consent. Perhaps we need to be doing more to befriend and inform jounalists and their editors? Getting journalists themselves to actively raise awareness would have a much broader reach than localized awareness efforts by non-profits and student groups.

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Lady GaGa’s Lovegames is sexy even to the point of erotic, but respectful. Touches are gentle and graceful. Male and female eroticism is presented in equal measure. Choice is recognized. In the initial bar scene she holds a scepter keeping suitors at bay despite their clear consumption of alcohol. Subway scene shows her both accepting welcome attention and refusing unwanted attention. This is sex as it should be: chosen, playful, mutual, beautiful, and almost indistinguishable from dance.

Contrast that with Unpredictable by Jamie Foxx. It is also filled with erotic poses, but in an entirely one-sided fashion. Women expose their bodies. Sometimes there are montages of erotic body parts, a breast, a buttock, a pair of lips. They hang off men, pander to men. Men passively enjoy the attention of women or preen their feathers and act cool. They show no flesh. They are never deconstructed into body parts. Though there is no rape, this is rape culture at its finest: eroticism that objectifies women and views them as props for male status. If a woman is reduced to props and body parts, where exactly does choice come into the picture?

The irony? In the UK, the studio refused to release LoveGames as her third single because it was too rude. Australia banned it from TV. No one ever questioned the acceptability of Unpredictable.

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Teri Hatcher in a charity triathlon

Teri Hatcher, one of the lead actresses in Desperate Housewives, has been on an empowerment kick since she decided to go to prosecutors with her story of childhood incest. In her latest move, she is partnering with Disney to start a website aimed at empowering women to enjoy life and themselves: www.gethatched.com.

In January, 2002 while helping her mother with a pre-moving day garage sale, Teri read an old newspaper story about an 11 year old girl who committed suicide after having been molested by the same man who had molested Teri more than 30 years early.

Coming forward was not easy. At the time she was out of work and she was afraid that the tabloids would hear about her conversations with the DA and paint her as an ex-star seeking attention. She also carried her own self-blame from her childhood. She pushed herself forward all the same in part to help the 11 year old girl’s grieving family, in part to tie up loose ends in her own story, and in part because she knew that in all the years between her molestation and the girls, he must have had many other victims.

Her testimony convinced the man to plead guilty and he was sentenced to 14 years in jail. Had she not come forward, the molester would have walked free – the only witness in the case was dead.

Two years later, Teri was given a role in a new TV series, Desperate Housewives. Normally, she would have tried to figure out what the director wanted, but this time she simply let her vision of the role develop and acted out of that vision. She won the part despite her initially being far from a first choice candidate. By 2006, the show had become a huge hit and she was no longer an unemployed has-been actress.

With her career on an upswing she decided again to put the truth within her above what she thought others wanted of her. In the April, 2006 issue of Vanity Fair she told the story of her childhood molestation and the 2002 conversations with the DA. Initially she came forward because she was tired of being accepted for only a part of herself. She felt she needed to acceptance for all of who she is. Once again she was surprized by the impact. Within a day, the DAs office had calls from 25 other victims of the same man. In the months following she received thousands of letters from people who had decided to file reports of long lost crimes, just to have their story on record in case their abuser ever became a suspect.

Teri’s experiences have made her sensitive to the need all women have, herself included, for empowerment. In a special edition of Larry King featuring 12 celebrity survivors of childhood sexual abuse, she said

“These experiences that we have in our lives, both personally and professionally, leave us with a choice, a choice to use our experiences to enlighten and empower and change people’s lives and that is a choice that I am getting behind”.

In May, 2006, she published her book “Burnt Toast: And Other Philosophies of Life”. She says wrote the book to empower women to find ways to value themselves without taking away from others. She further explains her purpose:

“My purpose in writing this book was to try to help stop the pattern in women to take less than what they deserve.. I don’t think you have to be molested to be in pain as a woman, to feel like you don’t deserve good things… we are all women who don’t treat ourselves well enough. Women walk around feeling like everything is their fault.”

In 2006 she also appeared along with the Muppets in a PSA sponsored by the Will Rogers foundation, advertising a free brochure to help teens deal with stress. In October 2007 she wrote an article for Newsweek telling her own story. At the end of the article she encourages survivors still feeling shame and self blame to seek help from RAINN, a nationwide referral service for survivors of sexual assault.

In September, 2009 sponsored in part by Disney, she ran a triathlon to raise funds for Children’s Hopsital Los Angeles. She hoped to inspire other moms like herself and followed up the run with two articles in ModernMom.com, one comparing motherhood to running a triathlon and the other reflecting on competition and motivation.

Today Disney is sponsoring Hatcher in quite a bit more than a triathlon.

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Roethlisberger’s fans were not too happy about McNulty’s claims in July and they took their wrath out on the accuser. But with this second allegation, the fans are focusing their anger on the alleged rapist, Roethlisberger. Tom Smith at the Bleacher Report wrote: “”I was willing to give Ben the benefit of the doubt after the first allegation, but this second one stinks. At this very least, Ben is a world-class idiot who should lose his sponsors. At worst, he is a sexual predator who should be locked up.” Hampton Stephens in the Atlantic sums it up this way: “When you are the quarterback of that team, your job is to lead. Even assuming Ben is innocent of any wrongdoing … his life outside the stadium is clearly interfering with his ability to lead in it.”

Why the switch? In an interview, CBS legal analyst Jack Ford explains that the March accusation has a higher “index of reliability”. Andrea McNulty never reported the case to the police. When she finally did decide to seek justice she went through the civil courts rather than the criminal court. The college student sought treatment at the hospital and reported the alleged rape immediately after it happened.

It sounds reasonable enough at first glance, but is it?

In the McNulty case, McNulty did in fact report immediately – to her hotel’s Chief of Security. Her legal complaint isn’t merely or even primarily about Roethlisberger. The legal complaint includes her hotel’s senior management as defendants and charges them with failing in their duty to preserve evidence and investigate employee complaints of mistreatment. She filed in civil court because these issues are outside the scope of criminal prosecution and could have only been handled in civil proceedings.

Credibility is not the issue here because McNulty’s allegation is over her employer’s failure to investigate or preserve evidence crucial to establishing her credibility. She alleges that hotel had room cameras that should have recorded the incident, but even after she made her complaint to management, they made no effort to preserve evidence. Presumably this would include any evidence that might have been captured by those cameras.

The core issue should have been “How much responsibility does management have when an employee complains they were assaulted by a customer?” Yet the employment issues received short shrift outside of feminist media. When McNulty made her accusation in July, 2009, her credibility rather than interference in her ability to establish it became the sole focus. Even more troubling are the reasons used to impeach her credibility. They would have made Kafka proud.

When the court of public opinion discovered that McNulty was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), blogs in the celebrity sphere argued that the PTSD made her unreliable. Apparently if a victim is sufficiently traumatized to develop PTSD, the trauma can’t be proved because the victim is too crazy to be a valid witness to that trauma. Next the media discovered that McNulty had been duped by someone impersonating a soldier in Iraq. Did sports blogs care that impersonating someone is a form of fraud? No. Did they question the impersonator’s morals? No. Did they say “wow, this women gives others the benefit of the doubt to a fault and is unlikely to misread good intentions as foul”? No. Apparently, the more likely you are to believe people are well-intentioned, the less reliable you are when you finally conclude that some one is playing foul.

Annie Shields, at the Ms. Magazine blog, might be a bit closer to the truth when she observes that the victim has all but disappeared from the latest commentary: “”As it turns out, the classic approach of discrediting or blaming the victim doesn’t play as well the second time around, so, instead of maligning the quarterback’s 20-year-old accuser, many in the media have simply ignored her.”

But was the victim ever present in the commentary on the allegations in July? Superficially, yes. In reality no. The substance of McNulty’s civil suit was ignored. The vast majority of the media only cared that the suit included Roethlisberger as a defendant. The criticism of McNulty wasn’t about McNulty the victim but McNulty as a threat to the cherished hero Ben Roethlisberger.

Whether it is Mike Tyson, Roman Polanski, or Ben Roethlisberger, the real issue is that we don’t like fallen heroes. We crave heroes. In school, we teach them in Greek and Roman myths. In church and synagogue, we study them in the Bible. We make them up in comic books. We build TV shows around modern myths like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville. We devote countless electronic bytes and airwave minutes to the latest sports heroes, Holliwood stars and popular singers. And we grieve hard when they fall.

Sean Conboy of the Pittsburgh magazine sums it up this way:

How ironic is it that NFL organizations spend millions of dollars on public relations and media training in order to tell the fans what they should think, yet they don’t seem to spend much effort teaching their own players to think. To act like men…in the throes of the crusty, pulsing hangover from Ben’s Dudes Night Out, I feel that same strange/ashamed feeling I get whenever I look back and actually watch old WWF clips. What the hell was I watching? Who was I rooting so hard for?…These are my boys, and deep down inside I want to believe in them.

Perhaps we are looking for the wrong heroes? Why do we work so hard to convince ourselves that Roman Polanski and Ben Roethlisberger are innocent? These heroes fall because we expect to have moral triumph and star power in one single neat bundle. We want outward signs of an inward grace. Star power is easy to see. Moral courage is hidden. It can only be observed through a long pattern of action in difficult circumstances.

Moral courage is Andrea McNulty pursuing her court case despite intense media pressure and then offering to drop Roethlisberger from the list of defendants if only he will admit to the crime and make restitution via a donation to a women’s advocacy group.

Moral courage is the unnamed victim of the second alleged rape who took the risk of being laughed at when she reported her crime to a police officer who only a few hours earlier had posed for a photograph with Roethlisberger. Who could have missed the public drubbing that Roethlisberger’s first accuser got?

These aren’t Sean Conboy’s “boys”, but maybe they should be?

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In mid March, 2008 media personality and rising model Katie Piper began dating a man she had met through Facebook. He seemed like a wonderful match, and she even called her mother to tell her how happy she was. But two weeks later when they finished a night of partying in London in a hotel room, he beat her, raped her, and held her hostage for 8 hours.

She managed to persuade him to release her by promising that they could continue to see each other. Like many women, she decided not to report, fearing that the police would discount her story since she voluntarily went to a hotel room with him. Even when she had to go to the hospital to get stitches for a head wound, she made up a story to explain her injuries to emergency room personnel.

Once home, she refused to leave her apartment. He continued to contact her and eventually persuaded her to go out to a local internet cafe to check her email. On her way to the cafe she saw a beggar with a cup. As she reached in her purse to put money in the’s beggar cup, he threw the cup at her. It was full of acid.

In 2009 Channel 4 in the UK used her story as its “Alternative to the Queen’s Christmas Message”. The six part documentary can be seen here: 1 2 3 4 5 6. Titled “My Beautiful Face”, it chronicles both her medical and emotional journey towards healing. It closes with her reflections fourteen months after the attack: “I want to break free and be my own person. Obviously I have days, weeks, months where it is really hard and I don’t see a future. But then I have this inner thing, where I say, no, I’m going to do this, get back to normality. I did have these terrible attacks. I do look totally different physically, but I want to be the woman that got through that and is now living.” She is a woman on a journey, but clearly the journey has only begun.

Katie Piper, before and after (ABC News)

In the documentary, the beautiful face is backwards looking.   The documentary begins with slides and videos of her former career and face. Early on she looks through pictures and jokes about how she feels like a 60 year old woman reminiscing about her younger days when she was a sexy young thing. She laments midway through the documentary that the scars on her face make her feel “owned” by her attacker.

Two months after the close of “My Beautiful Face” she is interviewed by Sky TV and “My Beautiful Face” appears to have taken on new meaning.  She says:  “The title of the documentary is ‘My Beautiful Face’ and I think my face is beautiful and tells a story and I’m very happy with it.”

My face tells a story… there are few statements more compelling. Each of our faces tells a story. Our beauty comes not from the features of our face, but the way we wear them and the story they tell.

Katie Piper’s willingness to share her story is an important counterbalance to media’s incessant focus on perfect complexions, perfect curves, sexy poses, and near weightlessness. This is not joyous sexuality, but driven sexuality. Sexuality driven by money, fear, and a deep sense of unworth. In 2007, the APA put out a report examining how the media’s focus on sexual attractiveness affects the development of girls. It found that rather than generate joy and self-confidence, it was producing depression, low self-worth, and eating disorders.

Its primary recommendation to parents was to teach their daughters to value themselves for who they are and not how they look.   Parents can make a huge difference, but it isn’t enough.   To be whole we need to look beyond parents, out to society and backwards through the generations. We need stories both past and present to remind us that beauty can come from within as well as from without.   Looking out to society it is important to see women like Katie Piper who can find beauty in the story their faces tell. Looking back in history we need stories like the story of Purim, a Jewish holiday celebrated every spring.

Vashti sent away (Marc Chagall)

The Purim story tells of two women: Queen Vashti who based her life on beauty defined by men and Queen Esther who based her life on a beauty within her. Vashti bargained for love by agreement and sexual compliance with the men around her. One day she had enough. When her husband asked her to dance naked not only in front of him, but also the entire court, she balked. But since her relationship was based only on compliance and the king had all the power, she was banished for her refusal. Vashti’s story is the story of every woman who has believed she had no value of her own and can only win love by bending to the needs of others, including their sexual needs.

After her death, the king sought a new wife and sent out a call for virgins to be brought to his household. Among the virgins was a certain Esther. Esther wasn’t willing to be measured only by her external beauty. She worked on creating a relationship with the king. She consulted with the head of the concubines to understand what the king needed and was willing to give. She asked for no more than he was willing to give and payed attention to what he needed. The king fell in love, chose her first among the virgins, and made her his Queen. Even after this she continue to build the relationship based on her intelligence and sensitivity to others. When there were whispers of a coup, she told him the names of the instigators.

Queen Esther revealing her true identity (Lilian Broca)

What a difference building a relationship based on one’s personality rather than one’s looks makes! Eventually a political leader, Haman, arises that sees Esther’s uncle and Esther’s entire ethnic group, the Jews, as a political liability and he sets out to destroy them. He even convinces the king to pass a decree to kill all the Jews. Her uncle sends a message to Esther asking for her help.

Esther is in a predicament. The king has not asked for her presence in 30 days and approaching the king unbidden could mean death. Esther approaches him anyway. The king is so in love with Esther that he cares nothing for protocol and offers her anything up to half the kingdom. For three days running Esther invites the king and Haman to a banquet. On the third day she reveals that Haman’s death decree will include her.   The king nullifies the decree and kills Haman instead.

Esther was beautiful within and without. She could be bold and break the rules because she understood that her real power was not in her face or her naked body but in her soul: her sensitivity to the needs of others, her connections and intelligence, even her boldness.

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All women should feel that safe with their bodies. Sadly, even 30 or more years of anti-rape activism, few women feel either freedom or joy in their sexuality.  Still far too many people believe that a woman “is asking for it” if she dresses or dances suggestively. According to a survey of Londonners (UK) recently publicized by the BBC, more than half presumed that a woman must at least partly to blame if she was raped. 16% (28% of 56%) of respondents believed a woman is at least partly at fault for rape if she wears provacative clothes, 12% (21% of 56%) if she dances in a provocative fashion.

12% doesn’t sound like much, but the numbers are shocking if we plug in an individual name or consider other crimes. If Shakira were raped after she walked off of the stage, apparently 12% believe she would be partly to blame. If Shakira were murdered after she walked off of the stage, would 12% believe she was partly to blame? If she were blown up by a suicide bomber, would 12% believe she was partly to blame?

Of course not. Part of the reason behind the different perceptions is that sex and rape use the same physical equipment. Sex is good. Rape is bad. How can one thing be at both ends of the spectrum? One possibility is that our discussions of sexual ethics tend to be entirely focused on permissible and impermissible acts, rather than permissible and impermissible ways of relating. We focus on the equipment used for sex rather than the quality of relationship that distinguishes it from rape.

When we focus on acts and equipment, then the only thing that separates sex and rape is the psychological state of consent and perception of consent. Psychological states are hard to prove, so it is very easy for doubt and blame to creep in.

But if we turn our attention to relationship rather than acts, then the difference is obvious. The difference between rape and sex is mutuality, not consent. Concern for mutuality is much easier to observe, because it exists after the fact. It shapes our failures as well as our successes.

A person whose concern is mutuality acts and speaks quite differently. When such a person makes a genuine mistake they say: “I’m so sorry. I misunderstood. I misjudged. I didn’t take care to make sure you wanted this as much as I did. How can I make it up to you? What do you need to heal?” Rapists self-justify. They find every reason possible for saying their actions are right or at least excusable. And even when they apologize, they refuse to acknowledge damage is done and expect the other person to just “get over it”. Since they didn’t mean it, there should be no consequences.

A person whose concern is mutuality seeks to improve their skills for judging when consent exists. They avoid making complex decisions when they are drunk or when they have only shallow knowledge of a person. They avoid jumping to conclusions based on externals: clothing, dancing, singing, even flirtatious behavior. They know that appearances can be deceiving. Mutuality comes from the heart, and can only be measured by the heart. A rapist will continue to point to the outside, never understanding that he or she forgot to measure the heart before proceeding.

A person whose concern is mutuality understands that sex, like dance, requires constant attention to your partner. In dance it is never enough to pay attention to the first step. To keep together and avoid stepping on toes dancers must pay attention to each and every step there after. The minute one stops, the dance stops. Period.

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