Well, there goes my good mood for the day.

NYTimes, the bastion of quality reporting, reported on the gang-rape of an 11 year-old girl in Texas  that's led to charges against 18 high-school boys so far - all well and good so far, right?  Shit like this NEEDS publicity to raise awareness. 

Only problem is, they repeated - without refutation or critical commentary - the claims that the girl brought the rape on herself because of the way she was dressed.

Choice Quotes (No cut b/c everyone needs to see this - DEAL.):

“It’s just destroyed our community,” said Sheila Harrison, 48, a hospital worker who says she knows several of the defendants. “These boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.”  As opposed to the victim, who's gonna bounce back lickety-fucking-split, right?

Residents in the neighborhood where the abandoned trailer stands — known as the Quarters — said the victim had been visiting various friends there for months. They said she dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground, some said.  TOTALLY BEGGING FOR IT.

THIS IS RAPE CULTURE, PEOPLE.

Now, what's being said and done in this community is bad enough, but the NY Times should be fucking ashamed of themselves right now.

( Here's how to contact NYT: )

On reading your article By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. Published: March 8, 2011 titled "Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town," I am appalled and horrified at the misogynistic tones used to describe the gang rape of an 11 year old girl based on her style of dress and upbringing.

Through the contexts of the article, I understand the question of how the young men and boys of the town would be led into such an atrocious act; however, no further assertions are made regarding an upbringing that allows them to interact with 20-something year olds sporting criminal records and questionable motives.

I might in fact be so bold as to point out that leading underaged boys into sex acts with underage girls, particularly using or encouraging threats of violence, and even somewhat moreso including the use of video and photographic media, is a form of child pornography and statutory rape in and of itself. The boys were also raped.

Where were their fathers? What was the upbringing that allowed them to interact with adult men sporting criminal records and questionable motives? Who is truly to blame for this atrocity?

The little girl? The little girl's mother? I think not. While locals' accounts may be limited, they are only as relevant to the story as the article author's own slanted view, which could easily have been balanced without such a victim-blaming complex.

I call for JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. to be fired and a public apology made. Supporting the hegemony of a misogynistic rape culture is irredeemably incompetent, immoral, and is shoddy workmanship in the craft of reporting.