mariness

Today's irritation actually started yesterday, when I saw some news outlets reporting * on the arrest of IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn for alleged sexual assault and attempted rape as a sex case or sex scandal. (Many of these headlines were later altered, but Roger Ebert repeated the term in a tweet, showing that it had entered the consciousness, as it were.

No.

Just, no.

A sex scandal would have been Strauss-Kahn getting caught, say, with a bunch of hookers and a goat doing interesting things with pizza while wearing a bunny suit. Or Strauss-Kahn getting caught with one or two fellow politicians in, as they say, a compromising position. That's scandalous and gossipy and as long as nothing happens to the goat, scandal away and create all the silly headlines you want. I don't care.

But that is not what allegedly happened here. (His lawyers say he has an alibi; the New York Post is reporting that Strauss-Kahn will argue that the sex was consensual.) What allegedly happened included grabbing the victim's breasts, dragging her into a bathroom, assaulting her, and forcing her to perform oral sex, in an assault bad enough for the Sofitel hotel to call New York police and risk offending an extremely well heeled customer who had just happily dropped $3000 a night on a hotel suite.

If this is true, this isn't a scandal. It's a crime. It's an assault. It's attempted rape, and let's make sure we keep referring to it that way.

* On the CNN business blog, drop down below the New York Post/Daily News pictures to "Will IMF Sex Scandal Hit EU bailout?"

Dear New York Times,

I admit to knowing nothing of the actual details of this case, and feeling skeptical of early reports. Like you, I have no idea if any of this actually occurred or if any of the early reports are exaggerated.

That said, if the allegations of gang rape of an eleven year old are true, it does not matter what the fuck the victim was wearing or if she was wearing "makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s," or if she "would hang out with teenage boys at the playground." Nor does it matter what her parents were or not thinking, or what the neighbors were or were not thinking.

Although, again, if the allegations are proven true in court, from actual witnesses instead of hearsay by neighbors who were by their own account nowhere in the vicinity, and you then wish to start blaming, I don't know, say, the currently alleged rapists, or the parents of the currently alleged rapists, or start asking why it never occurred to the guys that the alleged activities might not be appropriate, then sure. Let's try to have a discussion about that.

On a related if less important note, getting statements from a neighbor who, again, wasn't there, instead of interviewing school officials, the actual concerned families, the alleged attackers, the police, prosecutors and defense attorneys, is not, in any way, actual reporting.