Last week, Rehtaeh Parsons died from injuries sustained when she hanged herself in her bathroom. A year and a half earlier she had been gang-raped, images from the assault had been circulated, and she’d been ceaselessly harassed. A few days later the police arrested three teens for raping and then distributing photos of Audrie Pott, who had since killed herself.

These stories received significant media attention, as they should have. Newspapers tried to reconstruct the chain of events of the individual cases while columnists diagnosed the underlying societal problems that lead to such tragedies. I wrote a piece urging Feministing readers to combat rape culture in Parsons’ memory.

I had a lurking worry as I wrote, though, which has mushroomed ...