Column: Rape, Kobe and a culture of [dis]respect

We all know the story. Boy meets girl, girl likes boy, eyes wander/eyes meet, little bits of fire fly, and the next thing you know the door's locked and there's lip lockage and wandering hands and backs on the futon, or the bed or whatever's available really.

Then maybe it goes a little further. Condoms come out, he thinks she wanted it, she remembers she didn't, maybe we get a scuffle (but probably we don't) and everyone's a little too drunk to remember. It's reported at the Women's Center (maybe), Duke's weekly rape report quota gets filled and no one ever knows about it. Maybe we don't all know the story.

Someone at Duke reports a rape to the Women's Center almost every weekend. Most of the cases are date rape, and most of them we never hear about. Most of the rapists, alleged or not, receive a slap on the wrist and go on with their lives. If you want a more specific number, I invite you to try and find it. I couldn't.

Last year, President Nan Keohane contributed a guest column to The Chronicle about sexual assault, writing, "To say that there is a fine line between drunken hookups and sexual assault begs the larger question. Legalisms aside, are our actions consistent with the values we say we believe in?... If you agree that this problem is serious, help our community take it on. Both men and women can arrange their partying and social life to have fun while avoiding situations where assault is likely." I agree with the gist of the column, but Nan missed a big part of the mark. American culture--and that America includes Duke--says that all of this is okay. Victimizing women, knocking them down when they demand too much, and declaring rape wrong without taking action is an almost integral part of our culture.

Let's take the recent unpleasantness: the Kobe Bryant case, which came up in three of my recent classes. It's the word of a powerful and admired jock against that of a cute but depressed teenage girl. Who are we to believe? A man we've been taught by the media to admire since he was 18, who excels at a difficult and exciting game and has a really hot wife, or an American-Idol wannabe with tendencies to try and off herself? Must I answer?

So the country sided with Kobe (an unusual situation on a racial level, worth pointing out). Fine. That's our perogative, and of course he may well be innocent. But the country seems to have forgotten that he also may well be guilty, and that his accuser/alleged victim (because they're not the same thing, not really) isn't a criminal. Her name has been blared on the radio and her picture posted on the Internet. Newspapers, "protecting her identity," have withheld her name, but they've covered her history of mental illness with glee while naming her age, her high school and her college, making it easy for anyone with a computer and an interest to find out who she is. One website includes her e-mail address and links to a satellite picture of her home. She's received death threats.

The people--well, let's be specific: the men--who've put this information online have said they feel it's unfair for a woman to accuse a man of rape, tarnish his reputation and then dance around about it in the privacy of her home while his life falls apart. This logic works only on the most superficial of levels, especially in a case like this. Public opinion is overwhelmingly in Bryant's favor. He has top attorneys, a legion of fans and an arsenal of public relations workers. Yes, he will probably lose endorsements--but America has a short attention span. His marketability can rebound.

What does she have? What could that not-so-nameless she have possibly stood to gain by accusing someone like Kobe Bryant of rape? The venom spewed in her direction is a clear message about the American people's opinion of those who think they've been raped: shut up.