For Kaitlin
Text copyright 2019 by Amber J. Keyser
All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.
Twenty-First Century Books
A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
241 First Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55401 USA
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Keyser, Amber, author.
Title: No more excuses : dismantling rape culture / by Amber J. Keyser.
Description: Minneapolis : Twenty-First Century Books, [2019] | Audience: Age: 1318. | Audience: Grade 9 to 12. | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2018014574 (print) | LCCN 2018016957 (ebook) | ISBN 9781541543959 (eb pdf) | ISBN 9781541540200 (lb : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Sexual harassment of womenJuvenile literature. | RapeJuvenile literature. | Sex crimesJuvenile literature.
Classification: LCC HV6250.4.W65 (ebook) | LCC HV6250.4.W65 K4749 2019 (print) | DDC 362.883dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018014574
Manufactured in the United States of America
1-45224-36607-9/20/2018
Table of Contents
Chapter One
A Toxic Brew
Chapter Two
Power Plays
Chapter Three
Alternate Realities
Chapter Four
The Bodies of Women
Chapter Five
I Need You to Believe Me
Chapter Six
In the Legal System
Chapter Seven
Yes Means Yes, No Means No
Chapter Eight
Speaking Out, Standing Up
Chapter One
A Toxic
Brew
Late at night on August 11, 2012, a sixteen-year-old girl in Steubenville, Ohio, clutched a red plastic cup full of booze. She wasnt alone. Nearly fifty teenagers had gathered at the home of a volunteer football coach for Steubenville High to drink and party. Most were from Steubenville High School, but some, like the girl, were from a nearby private school. One of the partyers, Trent Mays, a sixteen-year-old quarterback on the Steubenville football team, tweeted, Huge party!!! Banger!!!!
Within a few hours, the girl was stumbling drunk and barely able to talk. The party was getting out of hand. The girl became a target of a group of students who taunted her for being drunk. A Steubenville High baseball player urged other boys to urinate on her. The gathered crowd thought that was hilarious. The girl had a crush on Mays, so when he and some other football players from the same school migrated to another party, the girl went with them. She couldnt walk without help. They kept drinking. The girl blacked out. She couldnt remember what happened next.
Parties are supposed to be fun social events, but sometimes social pressure to participate in risky or illegal behaviors is intense.
From pictures, videos, texts, and eyewitness testimony, the police were later able to piece together the story. Someone took off the girls pants. Her ex-boyfriend, Cody Saltsman, took a picture of her limp, half-naked body suspended in the air between Mays, who held her arms, and another football player, Malik Richmond, also sixteen, who held her feet. Saltsman captioned the picture, Never seen anything this sloppy lol. He posted it on Instagram, where it racked up comments such as Whores are hilarious and Some people deserve to be peed on.
Mays, Richmond, and another football player put the unconscious girl in the back seat of a car. While they drove to another house, Mays bared the girls breasts and put his fingers in her vagina. His friend took a video of the assault and posted it online. At the third party, the girl roused enough to vomit and then blacked out again. In the basement of that house, the three boys put her on the floor. Egging one another on, Mays tried to put his penis in her mouth. Richmond shoved his fingers between her legs. The guy with them shot more video. He took pictures. One showed liquid pooled on the girls skin. Those pictures made the social media rounds too.
Later, after the actual incident but before the girl went to the police, she wanted Mays to explain the pictures. He texted her, saying, That was my [semen] on you, not [urine]. He tried to convince her that they had engaged in a consensual sex act (that both participants agreed to have sex). The girl was unconvinced. The morning after the assault, she had woken up on the floor of the basement, naked, surrounded by the three boys. She later said that she was embarrassed, scared, not sure what to think. She couldnt find her phone or her underwear. She didnt know what had happened. But because of the pictures and videos, which were widely shared on social media, it seemed as if everyone else in Steubenville did.
The day after the assault, the residents of Steubenville were in an uproar. Some blamed the girl for putting herself in a dangerous situation. Others accused her of trying to ruin the reputations of the boys involved. Still others were reeling from the callous and cruel comments made by the many teens who shared the pictures and videos of the assault online. For several days, Mays and other members of the football community tried to delete the incriminating images from the web. They tried to talk the girl out of going to the police. When she finally reported the assault, her family was vilified by many members of the small community.
In November 2012, Mays and Richmond were officially charged with rape. The case rocked the town for months. In March 2013, Mays and Richmond were found guilty of penetrating the girls body without her consent. They were convicted of rape. Mays served two years in a youth prison. Richmond served one year.
Trent Mays (left) and Malik Richmond (right) sit in juvenile court during a recess on the second day of their trial in Steubenville, Ohio, in March 2013. The two high school football players were accused, and found guilty, of raping a drunk female partygoer.
Somethings Wrong in America
In the United States, the sexual violation of another persons body is considered a violent crime on a par with homicide. The sentencing guidelines for both rape and murder carry the most severe sentences. Both evoke fear and horror when we read about them in the media or hear a story on the evening news.
Americans abhor rape. At least, they say they do.
Yet throughout the night of August 11, teenagers in Steubenville were watching, taking pictures, and posting videos as Mays and Richmond raped, degraded, and abused their victim. A former Steubenville student named Michael Nodianos watched those videos the same night. He made a YouTube movie of his reactions to what he saw. In his video, he laughs as he gives a play-by-play, saying, Shes so raped right now.... He raped her harder than that cop raped Marcellus Wallace in [the 1994 film]
