Verified by 
It’s amazing what technology can assist us with. Where we used to be worried about the invasion of privacy that the general distribution of recording devices might enable, now it seems we are instead impressed by how much-- that is of public interest-- was once hidden from our sight.
The confession of a fellow classmate accused of raping a number of teenagers at Norman High School in Oklahoma is one example. Caught on tape, the 18 year-old describes his awareness and intention in raping a 16 year-old. If you'd like, you can hear him here.
I think it means a lot that we have this recording, because it’s been so difficult for us to accept that otherwise likeable people do indeed go around raping others. They had been the perfect obstacles to their victims being believed because of their confidence in having done nothing wrong. (As research has shown, they will brag about the actions they took, but describe them as something other than rape.)
But now not only can we expect that rapists might share recordings of their rapes (to gloat), we might also be able to count on well-raised young people to press record while their classmates admit to their rapes. If these things are done, could any one still defend the rape?
Well, the answer is yes. One of the rapist's friends has plenty to say underneath the posted recording of the rapist gloating.
This friend, commenting on YouTube, says the following:
A) This was rape only by the “feminist definition of rape.”
Boy, I bet that tactic used to work. Right away it would divide people according to whether they thought they were feminist or not. (George Will's suggestion that a rape he described was just part and parcel of "hook-up culture" is surely attributable to this kind of posturing.)
B) Because she's been raped, she's now promiscuous and unworthy of concern.
This was the youtube commenator's first tactic, actually. He mentioned he has watched the recording of the rape. (This was probably a tactic of the rapist, too: tape the rape to further shame the victim and keep her quiet.) The idea must be that a young woman who can be seen being raped is pretty sullied. Even if someone has a tape of a girl or woman just having sex, that's a lot of power to have. The commentator suggests that since the tape shows the girl (to whatever extent a barely conscious person can) complied with the rapist's demands, there's no way she's a true victim. This "logic" clearly worked on some of the students at Norman High School.
C) The rapist was drunk, too, so his confession is invalid. Perhaps he was also raped!
So clever. If we are worried that intoxicated people can't give consent, well then rapists (and their friends) are going to exploit that idea to serve themselves. The rapes they commit won't count if they, too, were drinking.
I don’t think this will work so well. The vast majority of commentators aren’t having it. And it may be too revealing of how predators think. Like the man who beats his wife being smart (and mean) enough to try to press charges on her (I've heard from police that this happens a lot)-- once we figure them out, predators can begin to test our patience with how they "work" us.
We've really come to understand the dynamics of rape a bit better than we ever have before. (In fact, thanks to the work of researchers like David Lisak, we might think to ask the rapist who he first began doing this to and who was it who raped him?) And if we don't focus on the actual cause of rape (the psychology of the rapist), we will just find that brute, unapologetic sexism in the place of any actual explanation.
Another commentator says, sarcastically, about the friend defending the rape, that “it's perfectly fine if you drug him until he can't speak and then have anal sex with him."
Of course, no one thinks that about themselves.
Some of us just think that's OK to do if it's done to a young woman.
This story has been thoroughly reported here. And there was a planned protest today at the High School over how the three girls were treated after reporting to the school.
