Back The Riot Act
Chapters (21)
  1. The Riot Act
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Part One
  4. Chapter 1
  5. Chapter 2
  6. Chapter 3
  7. Part Two
  8. Chapter 4
  9. Chapter 5
  10. Chapter 6
  11. Part Three
  12. Chapter 7
  13. Chapter 8
  14. Chapter 9
  15. Part Four
  16. Chapter 10
  17. Chapter 11
  18. Chapter 12
  19. Epilogue
  20. About the Author
  21. Acknowledgements

The first Facebook page to catch Andreae’s attention was “Crescent Girls for J Bruise”. As the story went, a 15-year-old student from Crescent Girls’ School came out as a rape victim to five of her friends after she had read Ho Yoke Peng’s confession on the “J Bruise” website. The six of them decided to spread the message of courage. They ran a group photo on their newly-created Facebook page with the caption “One of us was raped. One of us is torn apart by pain and shame. Can you tell who?” In the spirit of support and encouragement, the six of them had bought identical bangles from the “J Bruise” website and wore them for a month. They aimed to raise awareness of sexual assault and were glad to share their story with anybody who asked. An assault on any girl was an assault on all girls. “Crescent Girls for J Bruise” welcomed contributions from readers who had similar stories of courage and survival.

The second Facebook page had, surprisingly, been created by a teenage boy called Lee Joo Seen. In the “about” section, Joo Seen declared that he was sickened by the locker room culture of teenage boys who thought nothing of making crude sexual jokes about female schoolmates they barely knew or female celebrities who happened to be currently in the limelight. He personally felt that these boys were guilty of verbalised, imagined assault on the targeted females and ought to be called out. It was Jessica’s tale of courage that had inspired him to create a Facebook page he called “Stop the Bruising”. Joo Seen posted a photo of his school’s basketball team training on the court and tagged an audio clip of what he claimed was a re-enactment of their locker room banter. He invited readers to share their thoughts via comments, and vowed that he would eventually send the offenders a link to this page. It was Joo Seen’s hope that the public shaming would lead to their reflection and a change of behaviour.

In comparison, the newest page, “We Love Jessica”, was nothing more than a group of tweens coming together to share their adoration for her. They took photos of their soft toys and handicraft work, and dedicated them to Jessica, the bravest rape survivor they had ever seen. Jessica cringed at their reference to her as a “rape survivor” but could not deny how good it felt to learn that she was an idol to countless tween girls.

“We have to get The Straits Times to interview you.”

Jessica stared at Andreae in horror. “Please don’t do that.”

“Why not?” Andreae argued. “It will drive traffic to the ‘J Bruise’ website. We ought to ride on the momentum.”

“What if they ask me about my supposed rape—the one that did not happen—in case you’ve forgotten?”

Andreae stuck out her tongue. That inconvenient truth had indeed slipped her mind.