#stanfordrape

    Coming from Northern California, I remembered the day when the news first came out about the Stanford rape case.  Brock Turner, Stanford swimmer,  sexually assaulted a woman late at night and only sentenced six months prison due to sex crimes along as being called a sex offender for the rest of his life. The audience were shocked with the decision made by the judge for Brock Turner’s sentences. Instead of fifteen years in jail, he only got to spent only a few months, all thanks to his father. Mr. Turner, the offender’s father, has spoken about his son’s miserable life after proven guilty for his action. One of his sayings that changed everyone’s mind was “That is a steep price to pay for 20 minutes of action out of his 20 plus years of life.” It results that the offender gained the ability to reduce time, meanwhile, the victim does not receive anything, but continuous nightmares.

Fuck this entire situation.

Here it is, this is the story everyone wants to talk about but no one wants to hear. The story of a rape victim and the Stanford Swimmer who ruined her life. If you've only scrolled past the articles and news stories at this point, you might be wondering what all the hype is about. After all, this isn't the first college rape story to hit the headlines. What makes this stand out above the rest resides in (at least) two things: the boy was given a jaw-dropping-ly light sentence (6 months + parole to be exact) and the victim (who was found unconscious) wrote an intensely moving letter to her attacker that could and should move even the toughest soul to tears. You can read the letter to yourself on Buzzfeed, or you could listen to CNN's Ashleigh Banfield read it aloud (warning: this letter includes graphic details of the attack and examination afterwards). 

Judge Aaron Persky explained the reason Brock Turner was given such a "pass" was because he believed, "a prison sentence would have a severe impact on him... I think he will not be a severe danger to others." A great deal of this leniency has been attributed to convincing done by the attacker's father who emphasized the consequences these "20 minutes of action" have already had on his son. This decision by Judge Persky and the influence of Brock Turner's father caused a storm of outrage on the internet as men, women, mothers, fathers, and rape victims alike have voiced their displeasure with this light (but legal) sentence. Fathers have written letters to the father of the attacker, Vice President Joe Biden wrote an open letter to the 23-year-old victim... everyone has their piece to say (including a few sarcastic and hilarious videos by YouTuber, Philip DeFranco, posted on his Facebook page).

Many are demanding justice after such a decision and the current pledge to remove Judge Persky from the bench is gaining steam, receiving almost a million signatures. In light of all the disgust aimed towards Brock Turner, Brock Turner's father, Judge Persky, and (for some) the entire justice system, many have flocked to the aid of the anonymous victim. This includes the cast of GIRLS whose viral video gives a powerful message about assault.

Some have been rejoicing in the recent news that this former Stanford swimmer will, in fact, receive some "real world consequences" as he has just been banned for life by USA Swimming. This means that he will not be eligible to compete in any sanctioned events, including the Olympic Trials. Perhaps some justice will be seen after all as the overemphasis on this student's swimming ability has, from the beginning, been repulsively misplaced. 

Instead of letting this story be about Brock Tuner more than it already has, we should turn our eyes to the sobering fact that this 23-year-old victim was not the first, or the last, to be placed in a situation that compromised both their dignity and sense of worth. Now that this one incident has captured the world's attention, we have the opportunity to give voice and recognition to the other victims of rape that have before been silent. 

Every 2 minutes, an American is sexually assaulted while only 6 out of every 1,000 perpetrators end up in prison. Women 18-24 experience an elevated risk of sexual violence, but they often do not report to law enforcement.

According to a 2014 report released by the U.S. government, one in five college students experience sexual assault during their college years. Here's a few more campus trends discovered by Princeton Review and College Navigator. The data sets may be discovered on edsmart.org. 

Party schools experience 600% more on-campus sexual assaults than stone-cold-sober schools. 

The least religious schools experience 3400% more on-campus sexual assaults than the most religious schools.

The most liberal student schools experience 1800% more on-campus sexual assaults than the most conservative schools.

These facts may or may not surprise you. Statistically speaking, the bravery of this 23-year-old women is rare. But, if the victim was not assaulted in public and discovered by two witnesses, would she have reported it in the first place? Would the world ever have the opportunity to hear her letter and speak out against this unjust? Or, would she end up being another generic number found somewhere on the internet, posted somewhere in an article, that a handful of people might read?

No matter the events that lead up to this tragedy-turned-internet-controversy, lives were permanently altered on that day in 2014. And if there is any lingering confusion about sexual consent, maybe you will find this British Tea video helpful. 

The past few days the phrase “a steep price to pay for twenty minutes of action” has followed me everywhere. It is on my social media news feeds, it is in every second or third headline I see, I hear it on the radio, see it on the news..I overhear colleagues and peers quoting it. And every time, it gets me mad.

Really mad.

I struggle to understand how that sentence seemed like a good one at any point when you decided to pen a letter defending the undefendable, but I do understand you wanted to defend your son, Perhaps you wanted to talk down the impact of his crime to help yourself understand it, perhaps you wanted to try to get people to see beyond the crime, to the boy you knew, i don’t know.

But I do know this.

What you term twenty minutes of action, was not action for all involved. The young woman, his victim,  was not active. She was unconscious. To term the act of rape “twenty minutes of action” shows you do not understand (or perhaps do not wish to confront) the fact this young woman was not only incapacitated at the point of the attack, but sadly, will find herself experiencing many more “twenty minutes of inaction” in the course of her life to come.

I know this, because once I was her.

That “twenty minutes of action” for your son will see his victim face many many minutes of inaction in her life.

She will freeze inwardly when the word rape is mentioned, On the news, in a book, in a lecture. The context will not matter, her brain will hear the word rape and stop processing for a while. I have found myself frozen to the spot when a mention of rape comes on the radio, pouring milk into my tea until the cup overflows and a friend takes it off me.

She will freeze when she and a future partner are kissing, because something, a noise, a smell, a taste or a feel reminds her of something she wants to forget.

She will freeze when dancing with friends at a club because she catches a glimpse of someone who looks like her attacker.

She will freeze out in the middle of a conversation with a work colleague because something they said made her suffer a flashback.

She will freeze when undergoing a pap smear, because lying in a drs room with her legs apart doesn’t make her think happy thoughts. I hope she is braver than I, and will actually still faithfully go for her checkups, I often don’t. Because I can’t face the inevitable twenty minutes or more of stress, of panic attacks, of once again having to fight to claw back the survivor I knows lies hidden inside of me.

She will freeze and miss out on some of the best moments of her life. Instead of an active birth, she may experience an inactive one. I hope not. Again I hope she is stronger than I, and can birth naturally, enjoying the experience. For me though, I was not strong. I lay back and had my precious children delivered by surgery rather than have a panic attack as I lay on a bed with my body exposed to many. While I should have been holding them, enjoying watching their first breaths, instead I was lying in surgery, being stitched up. Each time I lost far more than the first twenty minutes of holding my baby.

In your letter, you talk of your son having struggled to fit in at college. Trust me, it is far harder to fit in anywhere in life once your body has been degraded, eabused, raped and treated like garbage, than when you are a freshman at college.

You talk of your son falling into a culture of alcohol consumption. He didn’t fall, he walked willingly. Unlike his victim. She was not a willing participant in “twenty minutes of action” yet she is the one who will lose the most.

Your son may be locked up for a few months, but she will forever be partly locked away. She will experience many twenty minutes of inaction in her life to come. She is the one paying a steep price.

Rape destroys lives || #SaveYazidiWomen by @lexibellaart @daniellebknyc and fresh piece #TheThirdEyeOfDuality by @pyramidoracle at @wellingcourtmuralproject in Astoria, Queens, NYC.

In Northern Iraq, girls from the ethnic minority group, Yazidi, are kidnapped by ISIS and forced to serve as their sex slaves. If they refuse, they are killed, some burned in cages while hundreds watch.

6 months is no where near justice for what Brock Turner did, and he needs to be held accountable for his despicable actions. Please sign the petition to remove the judge that decided to forgive a rapist.