Editor’s Note: Dorian Graham is a former receptionist for The Post who did not contribute editorial content to the newspaper.
“It was just another instance of social media and people being too free with their thoughts and what they’re doing,” Keller Blackburn, Athens County Prosecutor, summarized the series of events which led to Ohio University student Dorian Graham’s recent indictment and upcoming trial.
Graham, in case you missed the story over winter break, is accused of blackmailing another OU student into sex, video-recording the intercourse and then using the footage in an attempt to further coerce this student into more acts.
Highlighting Graham’s use of Snapchat and Instagram to facilitate this extortion, most media coverage of the case concludes with Blackburn’s assessment that “(w)e have to remember that when we do things involving social media, that these things are out there forever.”
I sincerely hope that most of us are bothered, if not outright disgusted, by Blackburn’s misplaced moralizing. The facts suggest that one OU student raped another. Rape is the issue in this story, not racy Snapchats.
Over winter break, I read dozens of articles and watched dozens of newscasts that have entirely missed the point. Devoting most of their time explaining to readers and viewers how Snapchat and Instagram operate, journalists have used Blackburn’s words to label an accusation of sexual coercion and assault “a disturbing sign of the times,” warning social media users to be careful with what they share. Somehow, amidst all the talk of technology, they’ve forgotten that rapists, not victims or their social media habits, cause rape.
In fact, no one has yet called this incident rape. Many sources followed Columbus TV news station WBNS’s lead by referring to “gay sex acts” committed against the victim’s will. (WBNS’s homophobic differentiation between “gay sex” and “real” sex as well as their misconception that rape is the same thing as sex merits an entirely separate column.)
Others, such as Bustle, have almost applauded the complexity of Graham’s crime, taking bets on how soon Law & Order: SVU will adapt the “convoluted plot” into a TV episode.
The worst part is that we students have seen this all before — the victim-blaming, the portrayal of an alleged sexual assault as public entertainment, Blackburn’s infuriating condemnation of the Internet age rather than perpetrators of sexual violence (and the bystanders who enable their actions) and university administrators’ silence throughout the storm.
As students, we deserve better than to have sexual violence committed against our fellow Bobcats dismissed as “a disturbing sign of the times.” We deserve law enforcement officials who serve more constructive purposes than fear-mongering and victim-blaming.
But most of all, we deserve university administrators who respond to the second assault-related media scandal in one semester with policy changes that take our rights to bodily integrity seriously.
So far, I’ve heard only silence. To me, that’s the disturbing sign of the times.
Bekki Wyss is a junior studying English literature. What was your reaction to the media’s coverage of this case? Email her your thoughts at rw225510@ohiou.edu.
