Response to Rape Articles

I was shocked by the amount of personal information included about the rape victims in all of these cases. Where is the line of privacy drawn? I do not think it is the public's business whether the victim had previous sexual partners (as in the Polanski case). Whether or not a girl is generally willing have sex does not make it any less meaningful that someone forced her to do something against her consent. Although some of these victims have no doubt made other questionable sexual decisions, they still have the right to give consent, and in these rape cases, did not give their consent.
I also think it is interesting how two of these cases include a victim and a rapist who would not be seen as a typical couple, while the other two cases present more realistic couples. In the Polanski case, the girl was many years his minor. In the Bryant case, the girl was a different class and race. However, the other two cases occurred between high schoolers. It is interesting to me that the Polanski and Bryant cases seem to have less blame placed on the rapist - even though the men in these cases were older and more mature, and targeted victims who they would not normally want to be publicly involved with. Although the other two cases place a lot of blame on the surroundings and the families, they do not attempt to excuse the rapists behavior as much as many people attempt to excuse Bryant and Polanski.