Age Old Victim-Blaming Myths Win Court Case for Girls Gone Wild

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual assault and explicit victim-blaming and sexual assault apologism.

Earlier this week, a jury ruled against a woman who sued the Girls Gone Wild franchise on the grounds that they damaged her reputation when they included footage of her being forcibly disrobed in one of their DVDs (h/t). The woman, identified in the case as Jane Doe, never gave consent for her breasts to be showed on film, audibly refused to lift up her top for cameras, and never signed a consent form. Nevertheless, when another woman came up from behind Doe and suddenly pulled her tank top down — sexually assaulted her — her breasts were exposed and the footage was used.

A St. Louis Circuit Court jury deliberated 90 minutes before ruling against the woman, 26, on the third day of the trial. Lawyers on both sides argued the key issue was consent, with her side saying she absolutely refused to give it and the defense claiming she silently approved by taking part in the party.

The woman, identified in court files as Jane Doe, was 20 when she went to the former Rum Jungle bar in May 2004 and was filmed by a “Girls Gone Wild” video photographer. Now married, the mother of two girls and living in the St. Charles area, Doe sued in 2008 after a friend of her husband’s reported that she was in one of the videos.

“I am stunned that this company can get away with this,” Doe said after the verdict. “Justice has not been served. I just don’t understand. I gave no consent.”

But Patrick O’Brien, the jury foreman, told a reporter later that an 11-member majority decided that Doe had in effect consented by being in the bar and dancing for the photographer. In a trial such as this one, agreement by nine of 12 jurors is enough for a verdict.

“Through her actions, she gave implied consent,” O’Brien said. “She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing.”

There is something gravely, gravely wrong in the U.S. court system when a jury foreman can say that a sexual assault victim “knew what she was doing” and therefore deserved what she got, as a means for deciding how he did in the case.

There is a long, well-documented history of coercion in the making of the Girls Gone Wild films. The women who are featured in the videos are not paid, but rather compensated with tee-shirts. They are plied with drinks by the crews, and then incessantly cajoled and egged on until they do what the cameramen want. Oh, and the company’s sleazy founder Joe Francis has been informally accused of rape. There’s no doubt that some women do actually want and choose to be featured in the films. But their agency and choices don’t erase or excuse Girls Gone Wild’s long track record of gaining “consent” that is not informed, meaningful, or enthusiastic, from women who are known and desired to be in no state of mind to make a decision that very well may stick with them for the rest of their lives.

But that’s not even what we’re talking about here. Girls Gone Wild’s history is relevant, as this case is a part of a long line of purposefully coercive, non-consensual, and potentially illegal behavior. But the issue in Jane Doe’s lawsuit wasn’t the more complex one of whether her consent was meaningful and adequate under the terms it was obtained. The issue is that there was no consent. And Girls Gone Wild knew that, and just didn’t give a shit.

I don’t know the law well enough to know whether or not the jury made the technically correct decision. But I do know that something is seriously wrong here when a woman’s sexual assault is used by a company for profit, without her permission. I do know that something is seriously wrong when “implied consent” — in spite of explicit non-consent, no less — is taken as a valid legal defense. And I do know that something is seriously wrong when a jury decides that a woman who is in public has no legal right to how her body is used by other people.

It’s rare that classic victim-blaming memes are used quite so blatantly and explicitly in court. Usually, lawyers try to be a bit more covert about exactly what kind of prejudices they’re playing into. I feel as though this example is so clear that it hardly needs my parsing, but I’ve been known to overestimate other people’s understanding of rape culture.

When O’Brien despicably said, “She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing,” what he was saying was, “She was being a tease. She totally wanted it. And if she didn’t actually plan to give it up, she deserved to have it taken from her against her will.” What he was saying was, “Look what a slut she was being, dancing in front of our cameras.” What he was saying was, “She’s a slut, and sluts deserve what they get.”

One has to wonder how he sleeps at night. But what went ignored in his argument, and apparently by the rest of the jury, was the simple fact put forth by Doe’s lawyer:

“Other girls said it was OK. Not one other one said, ‘No, no,'” Evans said. “She is entitled to go out with friends and have a good time and not have her top pulled down and get that in a video.”

This truth, that women have a right to be in public without being assaulted and then having their assaults distributed for profit, seems irrefutable to everyone who views women as human beings. But clearly it’s an easy thing to dismiss for Girls Gone Wild and the jury who sided with them. In their eyes, women who leave their homes, who have the audacity to dance for cameras, who “know what they’re doing,” simply cannot be violated, because they have no right to consent or non-consent at all.