Trigger warning.
I don't have much time to write about this article at MSNBC, but I wanted to get it out there for discussion.
First off, I am extremely bothered by the title on the top of the window. "Dad accused of killing son over sex with tot ." The girl was three years old. Using the word "sex" somehow implies that it was consensual. It's been discussed many times over on Feministing, but why do the media have such a difficult time calling horrific rape what it is? The girl was three years old and the fifteen-year-old boy admitted to using her in inappropriate sexual behavior. That's not sex.
Secondly, I have very mixed feelings about the entire situation. There are so many terrible things that happened here, and I have a lot of probably inappropriate and conflicting feelings that I'm about to say. But such is being a human, right? Nothing is black and white.
On one hand, I commend the father for being so absolutely against child rape. But I don't to the extent that I don't believe humiliating and killing his son were logical ways of handling it. (Of course, his actions weren't logical. They were done in uncontrollable, irrational anger. Strong emotional reactions are hardly ever rational.) I don't believe that murder was the best answer. The son admitted to the inappropriate actions, so I feel as if that is a step in the right direction. Do I believe he should've gotten merely a slap-on-the-wrist type of punishment? Absolutely not. Severe punishment as well as serious psychological help and community service at a rape crisis center or something along those lines would've been much more productive than stripping him down and shooting him as he pleads for his life.
That's just my piece on it. It's a difficult story to grasp, and I certainly don't do much justice to it. I don't usually write entries myself; I enjoy reading the discussions between everyone else. So, what are all of your reactions to this story?
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The day we have to resort to vigilante style justice is the day that civilization crumbles before us. Though the initial crime was horrible, we have a criminal justice system for a reason.
Headline is
"Dad accused of killing son over sex abuse claim; Dad reportedly irate upon hearing son had sexual contact with toddler"
I don't necessarily agree with their choice of words, but I think this headline shows precisely that headline writers do NOT think the word sex implies consent. If they were using "sex" when talking about drunk 19 year olds being raped but "rape" when talking about children, then it would really prove that they thought the former wasn't really rape in some way. But in this case-- it seems obvious that the newspaper editors are not in any way saying that a 3 year old consented to sex (unless the boy was also 3 years old? seems unlikely). Rather, it shows that when they say sex, they don't mean consent-- if anything they mean factual neutrality.
It would be nice if "sex" only meant consensual sex, but at some point language means what the most people use it to mean.
I have to agree with you, the headline is infuriating.
It should have be written like: DAD ACCUSED OF KILLING SON OVER CHILD MOLESTATION
What do you reckon?
and what IF the boy didn't do it at all? I don't blame the father for snapping, but he should have gotten to the bottom of the real story, because maybe the boy didn't do it.
community service at a rape crisis center
UM.... NO. This guy is a rapist plain and simple. He should have beeen locked up for the rest of his life in a cage and never let out. That is what rapist deserve. To live in a cage for the rest of their unnatural lives. That poor child is now a rape survivor and she deserves to see her rapist in a cage. Killing rapists is letting them off easy. Put them in jail where they can get what's coming to them, and leave them there. Never let them return to society, and certainly NEVER let them be around rape survivors. Rapist should never be around rape survivors. Its hard enough to trust the people around you after you have been raped. To find out that some of them were themselves rapists? That is unbearable
Perhaps MSNBC has changed the headline since you posted this. I followed your link came to the story, but the headline (now) reads: "Dad accused of killing son over sex abuse claim," and the sub-heading is "Dad reportedly irate upon hearing son had sexual contact with toddler."
I do not disagree with anything you have said about the headline to which you referred. But as for the headline I saw, I don't really have an issue with it.
Did MSNBC recognize the problem and change the original version?