Girls Gone Wild: No Consent Required

I quit trying to make sense of the world and the people in it. Because if a St. Louis jury can decide that consent is unnecessary for a woman to appear in a Girls Gone Wild video, there is no sense to be made. Not only did the woman in question — identified only as Jane Doe — never to consent to being in the video, she also never consented to flashing anyone. Strangers did it for her.

Here's the story: In 2008, a Missouri woman learned through a friend of a friend of a friend that she appeared in a video entitled Girls Gone Wild Sorority Orgy. The footage had been shot in 2004, when the woman in question was 20 years old. She was been out with her friends at a place called the Rum Jungle. Jane Doe was having a good time dancing when a Girls Gone Wild videographer started filming her. While other women voluntarily flashed their breasts for the camera, Doe can be heard on film saying "no" repeatedly. That's when another person or persons yanked Doe's tank top down, exposing her against her will.

That is assault in my book. The Missouri jury disagrees. When Doe, now married with two little girls, learned of the video, she felt violated. She understandably felt that her reputation had been damaged and proceeded to sue the makers of the video for $5 million. The jury only took 90 minutes to find in favor of the company. In a brilliant display of victim-blaming, the jury foreman Patrick O'Brien had this to say afterwards: "Through her actions, she gave implied consent. She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing."

Let me get this right ... through her "actions" of dancing with her friends, she gave "implied consent" to having her shirt ripped off and then having her attack filmed and distributed for profit by others? It makes a woman wary of going out a letting your hair down at all, if harmless dancing opens you up to that sort of treatment. In response to the foreman's comments, Jane Doe said, "I was having fun until my top was pulled off. And now this thing is out there for the world to see forever."

No means no. What else did the jury have to hear? No amount of flirtatious dancing negates that. This is like the classic she-was-asking-for-it rape defense. Sure, her words said "no," but her skirt/dancing/eyes were saying "yes."

Even Girls Gone Wild usual policy is to obtain written or verbal consent before the cameras start rolling. Clearly, Jane Doe never did. That the company has made money off of her assault — an estimated $1.5 million on that video — is disgusting.

I'll leave you all with Jane Doe's tearful remarks on verdict, since she certainly deserves to have the last word: "I am stunned that this company can get away with this. Justice has not been served. I just don't understand. I gave no consent."

Photo credit: lewisha1990