One of the things that has struck me about the RS article is this need by the American public to know every single detail of a story. We are no longer a society that can just sit and listen to someone, acknowledge their pain and truly "hear" them.
Instead we, as a society, are looking for our own personal answers, to verify, to conform to whatever preconceived notion that we have.
Stories of true horror are met with skepticism.
In my 20's I worked for a sexual assault hotline. This hotline served survivors of rape and sexual abuse. It was one of the few networks that addressed multiple personality disorders. As a result, a lot of the clientele that utilized the hotline often had extremely disturbing stories to tell.
One night, I got a call from a woman who was crying. She wanted to talk about a very specific incident that had happened to her during her childhood. I will spare you the details. They were HORRIFIC! One of the things that she kept saying was, "This sounds crazy. I can't talk about this in real life because no one would believe me."
To me it didn't matter. These incidents were real enough that 20 year later she was calling a helpline in need. I heard her and I believed her. I'm not a cop or a jury or a lawyer. I don't need the details of where, what, when. I just needed to listen and provide support for her that night.
I feel the same about "Jackie". I don't care about the details. They don't matter. Something happened that night to her. Something really bad that caused a lot of stress and emotional damage to her. There is no criminal case pending. She has not outed any of the men in real life. She went to Rolling Stones and wanted to be heard after being ignored and pushed to the side for quite a long time.
Rolling Stones committed sins but not the ones that everyone else talks about. Yes, there was shoddy journalism but that isn't my complaint. Instead of just listening to her and printing a story about the MANY rape cases pending on the UVA campus, they went for the most sensational story that they could find. White non drunk girl gets gang raped by white frat boys. That story sells magazines and they provided a lot of detail that was 100% unnecessary.
They didn't need to print the name of the fraternity. They could have said she went to a college campus party and x happened. They didn't need to print that one of the attackers was a lifeguard. Again they could have written that they worked together and omitted everyone's work location. They could have written about the many other cases but not in the details.
The details are not important. We as public need to start listening and hearing the pain. Leave the details for the cops and court system. We need to make sure that there is a process in place for women to be heard. We need a fair process. But as a public we don't need the details. They only serve to feed our sick ideas about who was "asking" for it and who is lying. This obsession with lying is out of control. Rape cases are complicated. Details get muddled.
When the caller was talking about her experience, I didn't need to quiz her on the details or track anyone down. The crime had happened in the past. She had not reported it. The best support for her was someone to listen and
acknowledge. It would be nice if we started doing the same, including for Jackie.