Without the victim’s knowledge or consent

Here’s a hateful little item of local news, which I would probably never have seen if I hadn’t been looking up how long we have to live with the smoke from forest fires mucking up the air:

Two members of the University of Washington men’s rowing team have been accused of sharing video and photos of themselves having sex with drunken female students, according to charging papers.

John C. Young and Tyler Minney, both 19, were each charged Wednesday with one count of disclosing intimate images for allegedly distributing to classmates a video of both men having sex with a “highly intoxicated” freshman student without her consent.

Wouldn’t it be nice if boys and men in general could manage to enjoy sex with girls and women without punishing or abusing or exploiting them in the process? Is that really too much to ask?

King County prosecutors allege in charging papers the two rowers had sex with a then-18-year-old student in December at McMahon Hall, a university dormitory, where they “filmed their sexual encounter without (the victim’s) knowledge or consent and distributed it to fellow classmates over the course of the next few months.”

Like Steubenville. Like the goddam Marines. Why do so many male people insist on mixing up sex with hostility to the sex partner?

Only months later did the victim learn from friends about the incident, the records say. She reported it to UW’s Title IX office, which in turn contacted university police.

Prosecutors also contend Minney secretly took photographs as he had sex last October with a 19-year-old student who was drunk at the time. Minney allegedly shared the pictures with classmates over the next several months, prosecutors say.

The woman “had little to no memory of the … sex and did not learn it had been photographed until a friend showed her the picture,” according to the charging records.

Minney and Young’s actions “have profoundly and negatively impacted the lives” of both women “by causing them embarrassment, shame and pain,” charging papers say.

Ya think?

3 Responses to “Without the victim’s knowledge or consent”