On the Steubenville rape case, which is so hugely disgusting that I can’t even write in proper paragraphs anymore:

You are a failure as a human being if you rape someone.

You are a failure as a parent if your child reaches adolescence without fully comprehending what rape is and why it is wrong.

You are a failure as a community if you protect rapists because it is more convenient or beneficial to morale to ignore a crime.

You are a failure as a journalist if you lament the formerly bright future of a rapist and the fact that they will forever be defined by the rape they committed, while at the same time releasing the name of a rape victim so that she may forever be defined by the rape that was committed against her.

You are a failure as a society if your tendency is less to prosecute rapists than it is to blame the rape victim for being drunk, dressing slutty, or behaving in any way that you wrongly believe could possibly warrant being raped, not to mention having her image distributed among her peers or being ostracized in her town.

You are a failure as a society if you assert that a woman who is not raped is privileged and lucky to escape being a rape victim, because somehow, it is easier to teach women to avoid being raped than it is to teach men not to be rapists.

You are a failure as a society if you deify those who do wrong to others and vilify those who have had wrong done to them because of the wrongdoer’s wealth, status, talent, or charisma.

You are a failure as a society when women like me walk around their neighborhoods and are less afraid of being robbed or shot than they are of being raped, because somehow, that seems like a more realistic and terrifying event.