I have become very, very cynical lately. I don't trust anything the police tell us about these cases. Especially in Florida.

Long after my husband's arrest, I would still see stories like this and be outraged and horrified and hope the guys were given a long punishment. Now, I'm not so sure. I just don't believe that these things always or even usually happen the way we are told.

It's not outside the realm of possibility that this girl willingly went with these guys and willingly engaged in sexual activity with a number of them, then her mother found out, ,and she changed her story. If she was actually held down and raped, that is awful, and obviously punishment is warranted. But I'm not going to trust that's what happened just because the Florida police say so.

Part of what concerns me is that we are increasingly showing teen girls that they have NO responsibility to make good sexual choices. Now, I'm not talking about this case: I don't know what happened. But, in general, we are telling them, hey, you can go out and get really drunk, come on to guys, have sex with them, and then call yourself a rape victim the next day because 1) if you are underage it's rape, even if you wanted it and 2) if you were drunk it's rape, even if you wanted it. This is especially troubling given that a number of people have been writing lately about how teen girls are acting in more and more aggressive ways sexually. We're creating a context where teen girls can be incredibly sexually aggressive with men, and then be able to claim they were raped because they were under age and/or drunk. That is not good for anybody, and we should be teaching teen girls to make smart, responsible decisions, not that they can do, say, and drink whatever they want and then claim victimhood afterwards.

Again, if this girl was indeed held down and raped, that is NOT what I'm talking about. That is a terrible act of violence, and there is nothing she could have done to have caused that. What I'm talking about are situations where a girl might willingly go out with guys, willingly get drunk with them, willingly make some really stupid sexual choices with them, and then, when her parents or peers find out, claim it was rape. We're putting all of the burden for making responsible sexual decisions on teen boys and young adult men, and that is not fair.

I think there could be more to this story then what's been reported. I did find it interesting that the victim group did say that most assaults happen by people who are already known to the victim...as we already know so what's the point of the crazy laws.

I'm pretty cynical and jaded after all we've been through too. I always wonder about what they don't tell us, or how the media has spun it.

Many parents allow their children to go out with friends and such when they are 13 so that is not questionable to me. I'm too protective to allow my daughters to do that but I know many parents who do. While there could be more to the story I refuse to ever get into the mindset of blaming or thinking the victim to be a liar as that is even more damaging than the initial abuse though I do hold an open mind to that possibility. What we need is a system that is geared toward rehabilitation instead of retribution.

hcjfctc, I have thought about this a lot, and I think that the people close to a person claiming abuse have different responsibilities than the general public. Certainly if somebody close to you alleges abuse, you have to treat them with compassion and sympathy (even if the allegations are false, they are obviously in a really troubled place if they are making false allegations).

But I don't think the general public should do the same thing. I think we have a responsibility to remain neutral on these matters, and not jump to conclusions. I've been reading a few books about the ritual abuse panics of the 1980s--which seem to be the root of most of our panic about sexual predators today--and I do think we can easily move toward mass hysteria when as a society we treat claims to victimhood as unquestionable.

Plus, white women alleging abuse by black men has been the cause of many, many truly awful things in this country (and protecting innocent white women from the hordes of predatory black men out to steal their virtue was a huge justification for racism and the founding of groups like the KKK), and I think it's really important to be totally neutral when any such cases come up, and I think the media is totally wrong for not maintaining a stance of objectivity and innocent-until-proven-guilty when it reports on crimes, especially sex crimes.