You may have heard about this story:
Emily Sander, an 18-year-old college student in Kansas went missing last Friday. Authorities believe they have found her body, and that she was murdered by a man with whom she was seen on Friday night. It seems she was also involved in Internet porn during her college studies. A headline on the main page of MSNBC.com tonight reads:
"Police: Body Likely Missing Porn Star"
Do they really need to refer to her in that way? I'm not sure why this is so upsetting to me--I suppose it is an accurate description. Maybe as a parent I'm particularly struck by this insensitivity, and how her parents have to deal with this characterization of their daughter. Given that sex workers seem to be viewed as somehow "deserving" of their victimization, this may be viewed as an attempt to dehumanize her.
We'll see what happens when they make arrests, and how the defense attorney presents the argument for the accused. Hopefully it won't end similarly to this case.
Emily Sander, an 18-year-old college student in Kansas went missing last Friday. Authorities believe they have found her body, and that she was murdered by a man with whom she was seen on Friday night. It seems she was also involved in Internet porn during her college studies. A headline on the main page of MSNBC.com tonight reads:
"Police: Body Likely Missing Porn Star"
Do they really need to refer to her in that way? I'm not sure why this is so upsetting to me--I suppose it is an accurate description. Maybe as a parent I'm particularly struck by this insensitivity, and how her parents have to deal with this characterization of their daughter. Given that sex workers seem to be viewed as somehow "deserving" of their victimization, this may be viewed as an attempt to dehumanize her.
We'll see what happens when they make arrests, and how the defense attorney presents the argument for the accused. Hopefully it won't end similarly to this case.
5 comments:
I thought the exact same thing. CNN.com's headline is quite similar:
"Body Found in Search For Internet Porn Star".
I'm not trying to ignore the fact that she made Internet porn or pretend that it's not true, but I also recoiled at the classification of her as an "Internet porn star". First of all, wasn't she also a college student? Interesting (and infuriating) that the media have anointed her with the "porn star" label rather than the "college student" label. Why must her involvement with Internet porn make headlines in her disappearance, if not simply to make the whole thing seem more tawdry? And though the intent may not be to communicate deservedness, that is the conclusion some people undoubtedly will reach, particularly if it turns out that she was sexually assaulted before her death.
Dr. HnK: I suspect you're correct--people are more likely to click on a story about an Internet porn star than a missing college student. It still chaps my hide, though. Poor kid--no matter who she was or what she did, she was murdered.
I think another issue here (that is also related to the Sean Taylor case) is that everyone is looking for a reason to explain the victimization in a way that doesn't make them a potential victim. "Oh, she was into porn, that’s why she was murdered. And since I am not into that kind of thing, I will not be murdered." Or: "Oh, he hung out with gangsters and drug dealers." So even though most victims are more similar to the rest of us than they are different, it is a way to appease our own latent vulnerabilities.
That is so insightfully Durkheimian of you...Rudy taught you something, afterall!
Excellent point, Patch. The "just world" theory: "A bad thing happened to them so they must have been bad; I'm good so something bad won't happen to me..."
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