Trigger warning.
Prepare to seethe. On a popular Australian 2DayFM radio show segment where hosts "Kyle and Jackie O." have guests on to undergo a lie detector test, little did they know that the 14-year old girl who was brought by her mother and subjected to the test was a rape victim.
The girl had told Kyle Sandilands she was scared before the questions began, but they continued, in which they knew the mother intended to ask them about her daughter's sex life and drug use:
The mother then asked her daughter: "Have you ever had sex?"The 14-year-old replied: "I've already told you the story about this ... and don't look at me and smile because it's not funny."
After a pause she then raised her voice and said: "Oh OK ... I got raped when I was 12 years old."
Sandilands hesitated before asking "Right ... is that the only experience you've had?"
The girl's mother interrupted, saying she found out about the rape only "a couple of months ago". (Emphasis mine)
The mother also added she just wanted to know if she had had any other sexual experiences. (As if the rape wasn't enough to be alarmed.) The girl also hadn't received any counseling, which the hosts claimed they'd provide if needed, telling the girl she was "off the hook" from answering any more questions.
It's hard for me to fathom how someone could subject their child to that kind of public scrutiny after surviving a rape. But whether her mother is ill, just in complete denial or the issue is more complex than it seems, it's still very upsetting. Not to mention Sandilands' complete dismissal of the rape; while he's obviously no crisis counselor, are you fucking serious dude?
You can hear the entire segment here. Community poster mindprovender also covered this.
h/t to reader Claire.
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Isn't it kind of perverted to be questioning a 14 year old about her sexuality on the radio to begin with? This just smacks of pedo-fodder. Also, don't people know that so-called "lie detector" tests are nothing but a bunch of outdated pseudoscience? According to a 2003 National Academy of Sciences report, "lie detectors," which should more accurately be called polygraphs, are "Unreliable, Unscientific and Biased." (Incidentally, Penn and Teller just did a show on polygraph tests last week. They are biased and imperfect, yes, but the hard science is on their side this time.)
And that's all the issues aside from the whole, you know, mother-bringing-her-raped-underage-daughter-on-the-air-to-talk-about-her-trauma thing. The daughter should be given access to a crisis counselor if she feels that's appropriate, but the mother should be psychologically evaluated for parental fitness.
Agreed. I'm not totally shocked that a mother would do this to her child, because I know that parents often have huge blind spots when it comes to their teens' problems, but I think it's disgusting and should result in a Children's Aid investigation. Ideally, the courts should force a psychological evaluation of the mother, counseling for the mother, probably family therapy, and therapy for the daughter if she wants it, and Children's Aid should evaluate whether there are other people the daughter would be better off living with.
that's terrible. does anyone have contact info to voice complaints?
Website for complaints info: http://sackkyleandjackieo.info
Insensitive. Beyond inappropriate. What kind of mother would subject her daughter to this sort of thing!?
Yeah, the segment itself, regardless of the outcome, is pretty screwed up. Anyone who displays their child for public humiliation has no business being a parent. And that station has no business profiting off that kind of voyeurism. And for that mother to do that to her daughter and ask that question, knowing that she had been raped...I just have no words for that kind of sickness. I listened to that and wish I hadn't.
Listening to the audio, it sounds like nobody at the radio station had any idea that she'd been raped. They were tittering about how she looked scared, which is sick, but it's obvious they didn't expect what was coming. They probably thought it'd be funny when she'd have to admit to playing hooky, or something.
The mother was the one doing the questioning, she's the one who asked if her daughter had had sex (even though she KNEW she'd been raped), and she was the one who was apparently smiling.
After the girl said she'd been raped, "Kyle" made that "is that the only experience?" comment, probably to try to save the segment, and "Jackie-O" then abruptly ended the interview, apologized to her multiple times, and offered counseling services.
IMO, the mother is 95% to blame in this whole ordeal.
I agree about the mother being most to blame. I mean, your daughter tells you she was raped and instead of getting her help, you take her on a nationwide syndicated talk show and make her undergo a lie detector?
It's an awful segment and shouldn't be on the air, but the station had no idea about the assault. Kyle's comment was stupid and insensitive, but it sounds like he was shocked and had no idea what to say. I actually think Jackie O responded fairly well, considering the venue and the unexpectedness of it, by offering comfort and counseling and ending the segment.
Lauredhel over at Hoyden About Town has a
transcript for those who don't want to listen to this monstrosity
(and i really hope my HTML worked, cuz i'm pretty hit or miss with it)
Not to mention that polygraphs (I wish people would stop calling them "lie detectors") are horribly flawed in the first place! Sleazy talk shows that use them screwed lots of people's lives with false positives. There is a REASON that polygraph tests are not allowed as evidence in a court of law.
How sad. This just breaks my heart. It makes me wonder how many bad decisions and heartache this girl will endure as a result of low self esteem.
"It makes me wonder how many bad decisions and heartache this girl will endure as a result of low self esteem."
I'm more concerned with how much heartache this girl will endure as a result of having a mother like this. Who the hell does this to their child?
I had a mother like this. She did similarly damaging things to me - things that when I tell other people prompt comments like "you should've been taken away," "your mother is ill," or my favorite "now I completely understand why you seem so cold and standoff-ish."
Yes, having a mother who will exploit your humiliation is horrific. I wouldn't say that I can "rank" the rape I experienced with the other forms of abuse I suffered, but they definitely all play a part in my life.
Brandi, I'm so sorry no one here really replied to your post in a personal, sensitive way. Your "story" (little slice of your reality) is positively heartbreaking. I am so sorry for you.
Thanks. You know all of the things I suffered have made my political positions so easy, though, so there's a silver lining in it all.
I'm sorry this happened to you. I wish more people realized how common such things are. Parents don't always have their kids' best interests at heart, and parents who think they want the best for their children are often wrong about what that "best" is.
this woman's children need to be taken away from her. No rape victim deserves this kind of treatment. Oh and if the daughter doesn't want to tell her parents about her sex life then it is the parents fault for not being open, honest and nonjeudgemental about sex period. No parent has the right to force their daughter to talk about her sex life. That is information they don't need to know if all they are going to do is be judgemental about it
"Oh and if the daughter doesn't want to tell her parents about her sex life then it is the parents fault for not being open, honest and nonjeudgemental about sex period."
OTOH, my parents are pretty open, honest and nonjeudgemental about sex period and I still don't want to tell them about my sex life.
Like I said in this comment on a post about buying a vibrator for one's daughter,
"...Personally, I realize that my own 'ew, my mom and sex? No way!' gut reactions are a side-effect of the anti-incest instincts I inherited. Not everyone wants to keep the exactly same degree of separation between her or his family and her or his sexuality, not everyone should want to, and I just happen to be on part of that spectrum that's comfortable with more separation."
Solely the mother's fault? I don't care how crazy the mom was, this is completely the radio station's fault.
This radio station should have an age requirement for the segment.
It's the radio station's fault? You're suggesting that the radio station is to blame because they didn't have safeguards against a stupid, insensitive failure of a mother asking her rape victim daughter about her sexual history? I reject that. It is wrong. I mean that not only in the sense of being incorrect, but morally wrong. Maybe they shouldn't have had a fourteen year old girl on there, and I'll grant you, it was stupid. But they didn't know she'd been raped. The mother did. Her first duty should have been to the welfare of her child, and she failed by demanding her sexual history on a public forum mere months after finding out what had happened to her. I don't care what the circumstances were that got them into that public forum. You can't say that the mother is not at blame because she shouldn't have been there.
The plan all along was to grill the girl about whether she'd been raped.
She is fourteen, and her radio station's brief was to bring her in and attach her, against her will, to a polygraph, all the while with the girl protesting that she was frightened, and them ignoring her protests. You do anything to a 14yo without their consent, you better bloody well have Legal look it over first.
The next step in the known plan was to fire the mother's questions at her about "sex with older boys". That question - have you been having sex with older boys - appeared to have been well and truly known in advance. Boys over 16 fucking 14 year old girls is rape. The plan all along was to ask her if she'd been raped.
There is no way the segment can have rolled along right, because it was wrong from the very start. It just went very slightly wronger than they'd thought it might, at which point the last wobbly, punctured wheel exploded completely.
The producers and hosts are well and truly on the hook for setting up a minor to disclose rape for public entertainment.
I have to disagree with you lauredhel. I don't think that was the plan all along. Statutory rape is rape, but this is an Australian radio station. Do they have the same statutory rape laws as we do in the U.S.? And for some states in the U.S. it is 16 and over, for others 17, etc. So even within the US it is not consistent. I'm not making an excuse for statutory rape, but I think depending on the laws of that country, this may or may not be an issue.
I DO think the girl was raped, and due to a lack of counseling and support from an obviously incompetent mother, she has sought attention from men after the rape due to trauma. I am a date rape survivor, so I can tell you, this is very, very possible. I wouldn't be surprised if the mom blames the daughter for the rape either, because of the manner in which she dismissed it altogether and laughed about it.
Horrible, horrible, horrible.
The radio station should have been more cautious, and Kyle's response was definitely not appropriate, but anyone can see that this mother is to fully blame. Even if the radio station did know (which I highly doubt because that would be one hell of a lawsuit they walked into), in the end the radio station is not responsible for the girl's well being. Her mom is. And her mom sucks.
I'm in Australia, bklynchica. The age of consent in NSW is 16 (or 18 for M/M sex, I believe).
Yes but there is also a clause to cover the situations of the people being close in age. If you are within 5 years of each other the statute does not apply.
So she could have done it with a 19 year old and it wouldn't be rape. Hence asking about a 16 year old is not asking about rape.
I totally agree it's the mother's fault. I think the segment is stupid regardless, but the station had no idea this was coming. It's pretty clear from the audio the mother knew in advance but the station didn't.
This mother is horrible. The child should be taken from her, I can't believe how upsetting this is. It's complete utter BS that people do this to their own children.
I don't know if you're speaking about Australia, but five years is not a legal difference. If you are an adult, you are not allowed to have sex with a minor. There are some states that allow for 18 year olds if they are still in high school and their partner is 16 or older, but 19 and 14 is not legal.
"Yes but there is also a clause to cover the situations of the people being close in age. If you are within 5 years of each other the statute does not apply."
Could I have chapter and verse on that, please?
In victoria sex between minors might be illegal depending on the exact age difference:
http://www.legalaid.vic.gov.au/745.htm
It's different in every state.
I think the mother bears the brunt of the blame, but I certainly think the radio station is to blame as well. I don't believe forcing a minor who's obviously scared to do something into it is acceptable, regardless of how harmless they may have thought the questions would be.
Even for something relatively innocuous like skipping school, an abused child would suffer serious consequences after the radio show. It was a poor decision all around. Then, this is why I don't listen to morning radio shows.
They all seem to thrive on embarrassing other people whether through stunts like this or prank calls. The whole morning show industry feels very juvenile to me.
"I don't believe forcing a minor who's obviously scared to do something into it is acceptable, regardless of how harmless they may have thought the questions would be."
This. I think it's horrible how minors can be forced into interviews like this, not to mention reality TV shows, without their OWN consent. Parental consent is not a proxy for a minor's own consent, and should be treated as one far less often.
FYI, the girl was 12, not 14, at the time of the rape. She is 14 now.
Right- I never said she was 14 at the time of the rape.
And at the risk of starting a riot on here, I have to say that some of my friends in high school had sex at 14 with 16 years olds. Yes, looking back, it is technically statutory rape, but there is a lot of gray area there. Mentally, both the girls and the boys at the time were not on "different" levels. We all hung out together, went to school together, and so naturally, there was an attraction among some. No one was coerced into having sex, it was always a mutual decision (among my circle- I realize this isn't the case in all circumstances). To say that every time a 16 year old and 14 year old have sex that we should call it rape, penalize the boy (or girl), and assume it was traumatizing for both, well, I personally don't agree with that. Do I think they should be having sex? No. But it happens. If it didn't we wouldn't have so many teenage moms out there.
I agree with this. A lot of statutory rape laws go beyond prosecuting situations that are by definition coercive/abusive due to the age difference, and prosecute minor age differences basically as a way to block teenagers' normal sexual expression (which occasionally may involve moderate age differences). An 18-year-old should not go to jail and be labelled a sex offender for life for having sex with a 15-year-old, for instance.
I agree with you Lauredhel. But having had my own experiences with a mother who smirked at, and dismissed my own teenage worries I'm of the view that there was a huge failure on the mother's part. There are utterly crap people and things out in the world, rapists and humiliating radio segments being some of them. It's part of a parent's job to help repair the damage when things go wrong and help protect their kids from these things. That mother gets a big fat fail on both counts.
Perhaps my view is a tad biased given my experience. Maybe. But given my experience I'll wager that when she gets older and starts allocating blame she won't be blaming the dumb radio station jocks for her exposure to this particular trauma and nor should she.
" I'm of the view that there was a huge failure on the mother's part."
As am I.
I'm not saying she's not to blame, but talking about a 14 year old's sex life on the radio is not OK. In fact, it would have been prudent of the radio station to have a maximam age of 18 for *all* participates of this lie detector segment.
Minimum age?
Sorry, that's what I meant. ^_^;;;
To have to admit publicly such a trauma for the entertainment of others is disgusting. The mother knew what had happened to her daughter and instead of seeking help for her, she chose to put her on display. I just have to say, that is the sickest thing I have seen in a long time. Perhaps if she had taken time to get daughter some help, the issues that she claims to be concerned about would not be arising. It seemed far easier for her to set her daughter up for more exploitation and damage than to truly help her and this makes me sad. If a child cannot count on their parents to protect them, how can they learn to trust and truly believe in unconditional love?
If you have been a victim of sexual violence, keep telling! Tell until someone listens. Be the someone who listens and is there to support victims. To get help or information about how to help, consider calling the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE or instant message online with a professional at rainn.org. The hotlines are run by the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN) and are secure, anonymous and confidential. To find out more about RAINN, check out rainn.org.
I just read the transcript and I am absolutely sickened by this. I burst into tears after the girl said she was scared. All of the adults involved in this situation are absolutely to blame. Yes, the mother was the only one who knew about the rape and her decision to interrogate her daughter about it on the air is astoundingly horrific. But the radio station also decided to interrogate a young girl against her will about her sexual past and they kept going after she said she was frightened. How could anyone have possibly not realized that this would go up in flames? It's sick and perverted and it would have been sick and perverted even if she hadn't been a rape victim. The fact that she is just makes it all the more heartbreaking.
There's some more discussion of this case .
posted by embrangled at 3:53 AM on July 29:
...Yeah, the mother sounds like a mess. But the producer is paid to exercise editorial judgement about what who and what should not go on air. There are plenty of grey areas where judgement varies from show to show, but this situation has big, red, flashing, DO NOT PUT THIS LIVE TO AIR lights all over it. The mother needs help, but she would never have been able to cause quite such catastrophic harm to her daughter if she hadn't been enabled by a radio producer who ought to have known better...
posted by markkraft at 4:00 AM on July 29:
...Seems to me that this is an indictment of every show out there -- most of which are on TV -- that puts minors on the air about their eeevil ways... invariably in a context that puts almost all the blame on the kids, and virtually none of it on the actual parents...
posted by Shepherd at 5:56 AM on July 29:
"I would ask people to put themselves into the situation where someone says to you during a live radio show that they have been raped."
Sure. Fine. Okay. I ran a campus/community radio station for a few years, and even the 16-year-old Youth Center DJs we had on once a week would have had the common sense to say "we'll going to break for a moment, be right back", cut the mics, slap on some music, and take three minutes to get their heads straight.
"Right ... And is that the only experience you have had?" would not have been the response of anybody at the station, from 70-year-old Tom who liked to spin his classical LP collection on Sunday mornings from 8-10, through Metalhead Bren playing monster riffs from 1-3 a.m. on Tuesday morning...
...Rule One was always, always, if something goes pear-shaped, cut the mic and go to music. Take a minute and come back to it. Kick people out, invite people in, call the station manager, leave the booth, do whatever you need to in order to avoid a total flaming meltdown.
This isn't a moral response; it's got nothing in particular to do with the situation at hand. This is just basic good radio.
So yes, I can put myself in the situation, and I can put about 180 other people in the situation quite handily, all of them with about two hours of formal training tops. And I can guarantee you that just blathering on like an idiot is something none of them would do.
They would cut to music, with the chilling certainty that I was about to shitcan them with the fury of a thousand blazing suns. But in the interim, they would cut to music rather than say any imbecile thing that scampered across a mind poisoned by hair gel and a modicum of fame...
posted by vaghjar at 6:59 AM on July 29:
So eerie how both the mother and the male DJ have the same -- I guess I'll call it -- blind spot. Mother knew about the rape but still wanted to know if her daughter was having sex; DJ's first response to the girl's admission was, "And is that the only experience you have had?" Just sliding past acknowledgement of the girl's pain, just like how they ignored her initial fear and distress... We didn't ask what was done to you. What did you initiate or actively engage in? Because what I'm really interested in is telling you how you screwed up. This rape thing -- well, clearly that's the guy's fault, but he ain't here. So, c'mon, we didn't hook you up to this lie detector for nothing...
Meanwhile, I was nauseated again by all the comments basically repeating what-about-the-context?!! and the-DJ-was-helpless-it's-only-the-mother's-fault!!! and but-she-was-dodging-the-question!!! over at thepunch.com.au.
Oops, I messed up on formatting the MetaFilter link. Here it is in full: http://www.metafilter.com/83670/Putting-a-14yearold-in-a-lie-detector-what-did-you-expect-would-happen
No offense intended to victims and their families of violent sexual assaults, but the “statutory” sex laws in all states are insane and kids/teens are being prosecuted at an alarming rate with the very laws enacted to protect them from violent predators.
I am not condoning pre-teen and teenage sexual promiscuity, but think back to when you were kids/teens and you played games such as truth-or-dare, doctor, seven-minutes-in-heaven, spin the bottle, or went 'parking'.
What was once 'petting' and sexual exploration between consenting underage teens is now grounds for “life time registration as a sex offender” For those old enough to remember Woodstock…yes, that’s right, all sex offenders under today’s insane laws.
Statistically over 95% of all youth could be convicted and registered as sex offenders for life!
How many of our young boys and teens will we allow to be incarcerated, subjected to barbaric and abusive treatment (see Plethysmographs, arousal reconditioning, cognitive restructuring of juveniles) and then forced to register as Sex Offenders for the rest of their lives before we bring an end to this insanity?
The current and potential legislation regarding this entire subject is seriously lacking any real protection of our children from violent predatory sex offenders. In fact more and more underage children are the ones who are being prosecuted and convicted at an alarming rate under the very laws enacted to 'protect them.'
Excuse me, but what exactly does this have to do with the story? A 12-year-old girl says she was raped, not forced to play spin-the-bottle.
Not exactly the place for a "what about the menz!!?" argument.
Oops: a 14-year-old girl, at 12. (Sorry, it's pretty early here.)
Oh my god, what a horrible mother. She KNEW of the rape yet still brought her daughter in and led the questions that way.
Yes, the radio station should probably have some policy against using minors in this type of questioning. But the poor girl doesn't have to live with the radio hosts, she has to live with that seemingly vindictive mother. I hope whatever the Austrailian equivalent of ACS is is investigating that household.
The authorities are looing for her mother.
According to that article it doesn't really seem as though the authorities are investigating anything aside from whether the girl is really receiving counseling now or not (which is important obviously) and investigating the radio station. They're not looking into the mother at all.
Team,
Its exploitation of a minor.
What happened was sad and shocking.
The victim should be offered help. The mother should be offered help.
The radio station (Austrereo) is culpapble. They set the stage for a minor to be questioned in public about sex and drugs. If I invited minors into my house to question them about their sex lives I would be investigated for pedophilia. This radio station has not come forward to apolgise, they have left it to their junior employees - the shock jocks. Management does not appear to have grasped the idea of human decency in their lust for ratings.
You can complain to www.austereo.com.au
Wait so the mother should be offered help?. Are you joking?. She is the one that allowed the situation, i certainly dont think she is any sort of victim and she shouldnt get any sympathy for what she did to her daughter.
SHE was the one asking the questions and SHE was the one that knew of the rape...geez
I dont understand what kind of help would the mother need to stop being a moron.
"Wait so the mother should be offered help?. Are you joking?. She is the one that allowed the situation, i certainly dont think she is any sort of victim and she shouldnt get any sympathy for what she did to her daughter..."
I'm actually not surprised. If that parent can get some pity from third parties, no wonder this parent can too.