What’s the “scoop” on sexual groping? There is no scoop. Getting felt up or fondled is old news. Ask any girl.
Yet, on March 1, Los Angeles TV station KTLA 5 ran a news story titled “Scooping: Sexual Assault or Schoolboy Prank?” The report:
An 11-year-old Castaic middle school student says she has become part of an alarming new trend called ‘scooping,’ which involves inappropriate touching by fellow students.
As if sexual groping were a new discovery! And as if sexual assault could be misunderstood as a simple prank–a Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn boys-will-be-boys shenanigan!
Sexual assault is never just a prank, and by suggestively framing the issue like this the media becomes part of the problem. We need to call out sexualized groping for what it is, and not hide behind coy language or veiled references about a hand-plant to the breast. And the media should be highlighting the politics of power instead of titillating viewers by focusing on girls’ bodies in sexualized ways.
Castaic school administrators, to their credit, said that they take seriously any unwanted sexual groping. And to KTLA reporter Lu Parker’s credit, she defined “scooping” in sex-specific terms as being when a boy student grabs a girl’s breasts or touches her genitals.
http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/03/12/what%E2%80%99s-the-scoop%E2%80%9D-about-groping/