And the latest horror in rape culture... 

Photo: Boulder Police

The latest duo that have illustrated exactly how prevalent and damaging rape culture continues to be in our society are Austin Wilkerson and Judge Patrick Butler, of Colorado. 

Austin Wilkerson, a student at the University of Colorado-Boulder, told people he would "take care of" a fellow female student who was inebriated. Instead, he raped her while she couldn't maintain consciousness. He was convicted of his crime. 

This is important. 

Wilkerson was convicted. 

Judge Butler however, decided not to send our poor little rapist to prison even though in Colorado his conviction would carry a sentence of four years to life in prison. Instead, he decided that two years of work release and twenty years probation was enough. Again the argument by Wilkerson's supporters was that HE had suffered enough and his future life shouldn't be negatively impacted by this one event. 

Again the focus was on what would happen to the perpetrator, not what has happened to the victim who has admitted that she has been physically, psychologically and financially traumatized. But that didn't matter to the judge who ignored prosecutors pre-sentencing memo stating that Wilkerson has shown absolutely no remorse and changed his story as needed. 

​How many times is the future of the criminal going to trump the future of the victim in our court system? How many times is the victim going to be re-victimized by the trial that questions whether or not she deserved or invited what was done to her (or in many cases, him)? How many times are we going to be outraged, with no options other than to sign petititions and continue to rail against his vile reality. How many more times am I going to open Facebook and discovered it has happened again? 

Fucking end this people. Just fucking end this. 

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