There’s another Steubenville type case in Texas, to provide us with yet more despair about human beings.
In an incident that shares several elements with the infamous Steubenville rape case that made national headlines last year, a 16-year-old girl from Texas says that photos of her unconscious body went viral online after she was drugged and raped at a party with her fellow high schoolers. But the victim isn’t backing down. She’s speaking out about what happened to her, telling her story to local press and asking to be identified as Jada.
After other teens started mocking her online — sharing images of themselves splayed out on the floor in the same pose as Jada’s unconscious body under the hashtag #jadapose — the victim decided to speak out.
I’m so sick of human cruelty.
According to Jada, she was invited to a party at a fellow high schooler’s house. The boy who was hosting the party gave her a drink that she believes was spiked with a drug that made her lose consciousness. She passed out and doesn’t remember what happened next. But then she started seeing evidence of her sexual assault circulated online, and some of her peers started texting her to ask her if she was okay.
Then, #jadapose started turning her rape into a joke. When the Houston Press reached out to one of the individuals who shared a popular #jadapose photo, he said that he didn’t personally know Jada and was simply “bored at 1 a.m. and decided to wake up my (Twitter timeline).”
Jada decided to share her name and her story with the press because she has nothing to hide anymore. “Everybody has already seen my face and my body,” she said, “but that’s not what I am and who I am.” Nonetheless, the social media firestorm has taken a toll on her. She says she now wants to be homeschooled.
Gee, I wonder why.
The Houston police is currently investigating Jada’s allegations, and no arrests have yet been made. The alleged perpetrator has denied that a sexual assault occurred, referring to Jada as a “hoe” who “snitched.”
She’s a “hoe,” and he’s…?
In that hashtag there were several denials that a rape had taken place, which apparently makes the Jada Pose okay.
I hope that the police nail the bastards who not only raped, but witnessed it and did nothing and then shared photos.
So this guy is complaining that she snitched when it was him or one of his friends that posted the picture all over the internet. So he was fine with it until she refused to be a victim. We need pictures of all those people at the party, so we can tell women to avoid these men. Even they and any women at the party didn’t do anything to Jada, they still failed to stop it from happening. Instead of a dog shaming website, we need a people shaming one. If you write anything negative about Jada, then you need to be shamed
A lying rapist asshole.
If she ‘snitched’ on him, that implied that there was something he would otherwise want to hide about that night; i.e. a tacit admission.
If she snitched on you, by definition, you did something you knew was wrong. Words! How do they work!?
Because ‘snitching’ on someone for rape is like ‘snitching’ on them for stealing a cookie.
Considering how good humans can be, it’s really sad how often we act like slime.
Jada herself has not made any specific rape accusations, so there is no reason to make any rape denials. When I check this morning I found that HPD had issued no official statement and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office had made no charges.
I have to confess that HPD and Harris County often fuck things up, but they are plenty media savvy. Jada has gone public without making any specific allegations and has plenty of community support. HPD and the Harris DA’s office are taking her quite seriously at this point.
Even if Jada was not raped, and she hasn’t really claimed she was, there is still the issue of possible drugging, which is a pretty serious felony.
@Francisco Bacopa #8: Also the (non-consensual, though that is necessarily legally presumed in this case because of her age, irrespective of her state of consciousness) illegal photographing of her naked/unconscious body and the illegal spread of those photographs…
Alcohol alone can cause people to lose consciousness, especially young women who have little prior experience of the drug, AND those who have a special vulnerability to it–alcoholics.
David Lisak has pointed out that predators routinely use alcohol as a ‘date rape’ drug. But the blogosphere refuses to address the issue because ‘victim blaming.’
Pushing alcohol into a 16 year-old is just as culpable as slipping them rohypnol. Minimizing, or rationalizing away the alcohol issue is inexcusable. Just because the writers on Jezebel can’t imagine sex without getting legless first. ‘Girls will be girls’ is NOT a rationale for the reckless consumption of alcohol as an accompaniment to sex. Even if 90% of women can do this safely, there are a substantial minority for whom alcohol is absolutely toxic. Predators are looking for such women and booze/rape culture is organized around isolating them.