What our girls are up against

I just saw this story on the local news tonight: In Florida, four middle school boys sexually assaulted two girls while riding on a school bus. It seems that first they asked the girls to show them their breasts, and upon the girls' refusal the boys proceeded to hold the girls down, lift up their shirts, and fondle them. So nice of them to ask first, wasn't it? I mean, if the girls had just agreed to it in the first place, we could have avoided all this trouble with the law and stuff. Apparently these boys, ages 14 - 16 (and what the hell is a 16 year old doing in middle school??), have already been indoctrinated into the unspoken understanding that girls should always agree to sexual requests, and if they don't, they're stuck up bitches and should be taught a lesson. I mean, aren't girls supposed to be sexually available at all times? That's how they are in hip hop and porn, after all. And let's not forget the girls gone wild DVD library of patriarchal wet dreams. This particular artifact of our culture has normalized the expectation of girls/women to show their breasts to any joe-shmoe who happens to ask. Like these guys now think they have the rightto demand this.

And almost as disturbing as the Florida incident itself was the reaction of parents captured by the news media. Most said they wouldn't let their kid ride the bus anymore, and another said the bus driver should be held accountable. WTF? The only person (interviewed on TV) who mentioned that the boys should go to jail was another male student. That, at least, is cause for hope.

UPDATE: Thanks to hot tipper Scott, who alerted me to the fact that the boys are ages 12 - 14, not 14 - 16. I also forgot to mention that the boys took cell phone pictures of the girls after forcibly removing their clothes. the smoking gun article