My First and Final Commentary on Steubenville

I am not going to go on a lengthy rant about rape culture and human rights for women. I'm not going to tell you how sickened I am by the outcome of the trial.  We've read it all.  We've seen it all.  We've been paying attention.  God, please, let us all have been paying attention.

I am going to say that I will be using this horrific situation as a catalyst to have another discussion with my son about rape, consent, respect, healthy boundaries, responsible substance use, and consent consent consent consent consent.

We all need to talk to our children. We all need to let them know that anything less than an emphatic YES needs to be treated as no. We need to talk to our kids. We need to talk to them openly and frequently.  From the very beginning of family sexual education, we need to be talking about boundaries and consent. It's so very easy and so very hard all at once, but please, fight that urge in your head to gloss over sex and gloss over the messy parts. Telling your kids and teenagers about the nitty-gritty is not going to make them go out and have a ton of sex. They are still your kids. They still have the values that you have instilled in them from day one. We need to talk to our kids.