As a general rule, you want to avoid rape, but you especially want to avoid rape in (a) Texas and/or (b) anywhere in the vicinity of either (i) Sheila Harrison and/or (ii) the author of this New York Times piece, James C. McKinley Jr.. Why? Well, because these people have awfully strange ideas about what really matters when it comes to rape, in this case of an eleven-year-old child:
“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.”
Ah yes, the "boys". What torment they will suffer! Ms. Harrison sounds as though she'd be right at home in Glen Ridge, New Jersey.
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.
“Where was her mother? What was her mother thinking?” said Ms. Harrison, one of a handful of neighbors who would speak on the record. “How can you have an 11-year-old child missing down in the Quarters?”
Jesus! It's pretty early in the morning to be this disgusted with your fellow man, but there you have it.
Update: Tell the NYT what you think about their victim-blaming story.