The Owen Labrie Verdict and the Curse of the Good Girl

Last Friday, a jury found Owen Labrie, a former New Hampshire prep school student, not guilty of felony rape of a then-15 year old freshmen girl but was found guilty of statutory rape due to the girl’s age. According to the verdict, Labrie and the girl did have sex but it was consensual.

After this verdict came down, I had a number of rushing thoughts. The case dealt with many important issues such as highlighting sexual assault in high schools and traditions such as “senior salute” that show how sex with younger girls is seen as a sick competition between senior boys. But the part that really stuck with me the most was a part of the girl’s testimony – she testified that although she had said no (three times), she tried to say no “as polite as possible” and that she didn’t want to come off as rude or “bitchy”.

When I first heard her testimony, I was quickly reminded of “Orange is the New Black” Pennsatucky’s storyline that plays out in season 3. There’s a flashback in which Pennsatucky gets her period for the first time and her mom decides it’s time to discuss sex with her daughter and says, “Go on and let them do their business. If you’re real lucky, most of them will be quick like your daddy. It’s like a bee sting, in and out, over before you knew it was happening.” Later we see this “advice” be played out with Pennsatucky believing that if a guy gives her attention that she has to let men have sex with her – she believe that it’s not even for her to enjoy. We see this play out in the present with her being raped by a prison guard. Pennsatucky doesn’t even characterize what happens to her as sexual assault. Although what her mother said seems like an extreme outdated view of female sexuality. This view about “just take it” seems like it’s still how society feels women should deal with unwanted sexual interactions.

What does a storyline in OITNB have to do with the Owen Labrie verdict? Well they both feed into this idea of that it’s better to be nice, polite, and take it rather than fight back or stand up for one’s self. As Rachel Simmons explains in her book The Curse of the Good Girl, we teach girls that they should be the “good girl”,  always nice, polite, and doesn’t create trouble unlike “bad girls” who really are standing up for themselves but are seen as aggressive and confrontational. Pennsatucky’s mom tells her daughter that to just take it because not only is that her role as a woman but also to avoid conflict. This idea of being the “good girl” and avoid conflict even at the detriment of one’s own safety or feelings is what caused this survivor to say no (three times) but to do so in what the survivor says characterizes as “as polite as possible”. Girls are often taught to not be aggressive because if we are we’ll be labeled a bitch or seen as rude, unruly, or as a mean girl. It’s easy to just dismiss this and ask – well why does she care about these stupid labels? Let’s be honest, labels that are used on women, like bitch, whore, slut, don’t just stay in high school and are still used in the real world and being labeled as such do affect women in many aspects of their lives – from women not calling out men on their sexist bullshit to not negotiating for a higher salary to not come off as aggressive to even the extreme case of women not fighting back during an assault.

Society and the media want to portray that rape only happens if the victim is screaming, kicking, and fighting back, but this case isn’t that and not all cases are like that. This portrayal of how a victim should act during an assault, is the same reason why Pennsatucky doesn’t see her own sexual assault as such. What I believe this verdict and the girl’s testimony say about consent and rape is that even if the survivor said no (again, three times), even if she was trying to be polite, that we still have this idea that it’s only rape if she’s actively fighting him off. Our society wants to discredit the fact that people can become frozen during an assault and don’t know how to react. Why should we expect that of all women? Especially when we’re taught that it’s easier and it’ll go by faster if we just take it or if we’re afraid as coming off as rude. This case really displays how our society only sees forcible rape in an extreme way and how a girl saying no but not actively fighting is seen as consent. Wanting to be polite doesn’t equal consent, especially when one has already said no.  My hope is that this case sheds light into how we’re teaching girls about their sexuality and how teaching them to be polite is important but girls should also be taught that it’s okay to be assertive. Because the image of the perfect “good girls” isn’t good for them, it’s actually quite harmful.