Why is everyone so angry about rape of young boys when thousands of young girls are raped every day

Is raping a young boy worse than raping a young girl?

no.

equally repulsive.

Your post is spot on. The sad truth is that this current brouhaha is getting so much attention because of the connection to a popular sports team. The problem of young girls being molested is far more pervasive. Similarly, look at the deep and wide pervasiveness of Catholic priests molesting boys, particularly Indian boys in the Canadian boarding schools. Where was the giant media splash about that? But, pet the much vaunted Pennsylvania State football coaches be implicated and, wow, it is a big media deal. I feel bad for those boys, don't get me wrong, but your criticism of the media for its shallowness and obvious use of this matter to pump up their ratings should cause people to think about molestation in general.

Thank you for your opinion that you understood my anger.

BBB

but Joe Pa was fired

please, won't someone think about the football program

OPINION: Patrick B. Pexton, Ombudsman
The Post’s coverage of the Penn State story relied too heavily on columnists
By Patrick B. Pexton
November 11, 2011

Sometimes it seems as if half the people I know in Washington are from Pennsylvania, so it’s no surprise that I got a lot of phone calls and e-mail this week about Joe Paterno, Penn State University and Happy Valley’s descent into sadness and scandal.

Most of the readers found The Post’s coverage — in print, less so online — lacking in volume and depth and too much reliant on columnists. I think they’re right.

Compared with the New York Times and USA Today, The Post was slower to respond, and when it did, its columnists were the featured players, rather than news reporters on the scene in State College, Pa.

On Nov. 5, a Pennsylvania grand jury accused Paterno’s former defensive coordinator, Gerald Sandusky, of abusing eight young boys and recommended charges. Post print readers first learned of the scandal on Sunday only if they went to the Sports section, where Mike Wise’s column, appropriately questioning Paterno’s role, led the section’s front page. There was no news story in that day’s paper.

The Times, in contrast, had a lengthy front-page story that jumped to the Sports section.

On Monday, The Post ran a short Associated Press story on the third page of Sports. That’s all. The Times had two staff-written stories, one on its Sports front and a second inside the section. USA Today had a front-page teaser leading to its Sports section, where it featured a story on the scandal.

On Tuesday, The Post had a fine John Feinstein column on Penn State that began on the front of Sports and then jumped to Page D3, where there was again a short AP story on the scandal. The Times had a front-page photo teasing to its Sports section, which had two stories and a column. USA Today hit the scandal hard that day. Its front-page featured story was on the scandal, and in Sports it had two more stories, plus a column and a reader poll on Paterno’s fate.

By this time, Post readers were getting angry. A faithful reader of The Post for 48 years wrote me this: “The Washington Post’s coverage of the Penn State scandal has been appalling. John Feinstein’s column today was good, but the idea of covering this with sports columnists and the AP for a major newspaper in an area loaded with Penn State alums and not far from State College is a sad commentary on the way things are in the Post these days.”

By Wednesday, The Post began to catch up. It had sent Steve Yanda to Pennsylvania the day before. A front-page teaser led to the Sports front, which included a long story from Yanda and a Sally Jenkins column. Tracee Hamilton’s column on Sandusky ran on D3.

Post baseball reporter Dave Sheinin then rushed up to State College and is still there, filing at least one story a day.

But the pattern of Post competitors doing more continued through the week.

In all, through Friday, The Post published seven columns and five news stories in the newspaper, two of which were wire stories. The only front-page article was Thomas Boswell’s column Thursday.

The Times did 15 stories over the same time frame, including four which ran on its front page, plus three columns. The Times also consistently made an effort to give the story a national focus — what this story said about the power of college football and college sports in general. USA Today had 17 stories, three of which ran on its front page, plus three columns.

Matt Vita, The Post’s sports editor, defended the newspaper coverage: “We have had people on the ground up there for most of the week. Beyond that, our columnists are the backbone of our section, and when you can put out interesting, provocative commentary by Mike Wise, John Feinstein, Sally Jenkins, Tracee Hamilton, Jason Reid and Tom Boswell, we are doing our readers a tremendous service. We are bringing more to a story about a university campus that we normally don’t cover.”

Online, The Post’s coverage was more extensive because it ran dozens of AP stories and its many bloggers weighed in as the scandal unfolded. That’s appropriate for online. But the vast majority of The Post’s revenue still comes from print circulation, and on Penn State, The Post’s newspaper fell short.

I know that Pennsylvania is outside The Post’s coverage area and that resources are limited, but I think this scandal was big enough, and close enough, to merit a larger commitment of time and reporters.

I think abuse of any child is wrong, horrible, disgusting...
However, I don't think that the media, at least in Canada, can report much on the rape of little girls because the victims are meant to be shielded from the media. In cases involving little boys, it's often the boy scouts, churches or sports leaders, groups that should be protecting or guiding youth and have failed on a massive scale. With girls it is normally family members or the bad boyfriends of their mothers, or some piece of **** joe blow. In canada, the children's names are kept secret to protect them, so often is the abuser's name if their name can be used to identify the victim, like a father/step-father, uncle. News outlets can't really report on more than stats, unless a nameless victim comes forward as an adult or the case is so large and can't be contained.


Crimes like Penn state aren't about boys and girls, it's about power and the abuse of it. If it were girls it would get the same press but often, where boys are concerned, it is usually a case of a spectacular ****-up or cover up. For years, men that had been abused complained of the very thing you seem to think is happening here. That they were the forgotten victims, or they felt that they weren't being listened to because the were male. Men don't cry, stiff upper lip and all... Go back 20 or so years and you'd hardly ever see a story were boys were the victims. There is no difference in the awfulness of such crimes, it's just some are bigger stories. All of these terrible crimes teach us that pedophiles exist, and that men are normally the perpetrators. And that, obviously, we haven't done enough to stop these monsters from hurting our children.

the fact that this particular story ended up being more about sports than the assaults is both telling and disturbing

as for the original question, i think it has to do with the fact that much of the nation is uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality, so, while the young girl being assaulted is reprehensible as a violation, the young boy has the added stigma of not only the violation, but a form of sex that many are uncomfortable with

The title of this thread upsets me a little. I don't like the idea of pitting boy victims against girl victims to make a political point.

I agree with others here that this story is getting so much coverage because of the identity of the perpetrator and the people who covered it up. If the victims had been girls the story would have received the same coverage.

While the reason for the coverage is disturbing, the actual coverage is probably a good thing. As a society we need to deal with the tragic reality of sexual abuse in the open.

possibly, but the church scandals included both boys and girls, but most times i've been around people commenting on those stories it's the boys that are most mentioned (and granted they were the larger percentage i imagine)

"If the victims had been girls the story would have received the same coverage."

If it had been rape of little girls, it might have been noted by the Media for one report on the last page of the neighborhood newspaper.

I don't agree with you. Little girls are raped by males by the thousands. Have you ever heard of a female raping a little girl? I haven't. It's usually the rape of a young girl by a male and of a less raping of little boys by men, at least those that are discovered.

BBB

Despite all the whining about it the Penn St story is not about the victims, so your claim that boys matter and girls dont is bogus. The Penn St story is about the cover up and the abuse of power, of which the actual crime is but a footnote.

We will get all teary over victims yet again because we dont want to think about why the Penn St story has such an impact on us, but the wailing over victims will be yet another cover-up.

Dont shoot me, I am just the messenger here.

Youre not even sure whether youve got the correct postage.

BBB-Why camnt we be concerned about both? A crime is a crime

Far from shooting you, I will agree.

The issue here is not just the rape of a child, it is the systematic rape over years with those who should have taken action avoiding doing so. I agree with Max that if the victims in this exact case had been girls the outrage would have been equal. You are comparing isolated cases of rape that occur everyday with the repeated preying on children by an authority figure while his supervision looked on.

BBB, if you feel that because the rape of girls is ignored that you feel nothing for the plight of the boys in this case, that is your right, but I choose to feel outrage about both.

The horror here is that so many looked away for so long, and that even when some people finally decided to not look away it took two years to arrest the guy and for the rest of us to notice. We had opportunity to notice and show caring at least as early as April when the story broke in the about this investigation, but few cared. What happened at Penn St and the response to it shows what humans are capable of, and I dont mean just Paterno and the rest of the big names bandied about, this event shows vividly the shadow as Jung defines it and it just kills us to not be able to ignore it. Our reaction to this story is a case study in transference, as we dont want to deal with what we ourselves are capable of, what all humans are capable of, so we load all of this sin up on Paterno, sandusky, Spanier, Curley....trying to bleach ourselves with willful ignorance.

This is a personal issue for me as well BumbleBee.

Our society has been building a support network for victims of rape and abuse. We have rape crisis centers now, and sexual abuse screening. Famous people like Oprah tell their stories of sexual abuse and receive overwhelmingly positive support.

These are all great things. Male survivors and female survivors are in this together. And every advance for victims of sexual abuse is an advance for us all.

Male survivors have had special barriers to setting up support and recovery networks. Men were late getting started partly because of the stigma. One particularly difficult problem is when the rapist is a woman. The abuse isn't taken seriously since boys are not supposed to "let" themselves be victims and are supposed to enjoy being molsted. This may be why there are no prominent male figures I can think of who have gone public about being a victim of sexual abuse.

But this should be about supporting victims. Not male victims or female victims, just victims.

I heard a large piece on NPR about the responsibility of adults to protect the children around them by not keeping silent. This is very important issue and I was glad to hear it being discussed publicly.

The isssue here with the little boys is really the issue of college football and the huge amounts of money generated by this sport for the colleges involved.

What would the colleges do, if suddenly this source of money were to dry up?

Are taxpayers going to be willing to compensate for the loss with higher state support of schools?

We know where that train goes.

I think this source of money may well dry up. My husband took his three navy blue Penn State sweatshirts and threw them in the trash. He'll no longer be donating to this college to help out with football, or anything else. Hopefully, no other alumni will either.

Penn State may never have another football team, an editorial said in today's news. This will probably be discussed for a decade or more, because these men can't be allowed to turn so many young males into what they have become. Save the game, but these young men will carry some unbelievable anger around probably for the rest of their lives. T0 hell with the game!