Advertisement
Together, the young men told an all-too-familiar story of male bravado and rape culture intertwined with the strange and perverted customs of a New England institution whose alumni include famous politicians, authors, and bankers.Central to this culture, according to the men on the stand: secrecy and denial at all costs.Jurors heard private Facebook messages exchanged between members of a pseudo-support group for horny teens called "Slayer's Anonymous," and "sub rosa" emails—a Latin phrase meaning "under the rose"—used to denote confidentiality.The central focus of the messages was a decades-old rite at St. Paul's called "the Senior Salute." It's either a harmless tradition or twisted sex game, depending on whom you ask. The ritual is crucial to both the defense and the prosecution's arguments over charges that Labrie raped a freshman girl who was just 15.The general principles of the Senior Salute involves men on the cusp of graduation emailing younger students they'd "like to get to know better," as Tucker Marchese, a St. Paul's alum who testified Monday, put it. Another alum, Malcolm Salovaara, said the tradition was akin to a "last-chance dance."Previously: The Trial of an Alleged Elite New England Prep School Rapist
Advertisement
The alleged victim, who is not being named by the media, took the stand for three days in a row last week to testify about an encounter she says started as part of the Senior Salute but ended in rape. Labrie, a shaggy-haired prefect, was on his way to Harvard* but, now 19, has been scraping together money to pay for his legal team and faces up to 20 years in prison each for three felony sexual assault charges.The girl offered her account in graphic detail, and then defended inconsistencies in her testimony during a lengthy cross-examination. Labrie's attorney claims the interaction was consensual, and that his client never penetrated the girl—which, because of her age, would constitute sexual assault* in the state of New Hampshire."If someone did something like dry humping, that would be a variation of sex, wouldn't it?" Labrie's attorney J. W. Carney asked Thompson, who was Labrie's roommate for three years."I'm not entirely sure," Thompson, replied, adding that Labrie told him he "boned" the alleged victim. When Thompson asked if it was the girl's virginity, "He confirmed that it was," he told jurors.Testimony suggested that among Labrie and his friends, the sex game was carefully orchestrated.
Advertisement
An alum who went to the nearby Philips-Exeter Academy a decade ago says sex games—even if they aren't as storied as this one—went on at other New England boarding schools. In one instance, she recalled, female students would compete to see who could sleep with a male student from each of the dormitories. (This would be unheard of at the public New England high school I attended, where the most remarkable aspect of student life was the sheer volume of drugs.)But the extent to which Labrie and his peers devoted themselves to the Senior Salute stands apart."I've never heard of anything quite like it," says Rebecca Roe, a Seattle prosecutor who tried sex cases for 35 years before starting a private practice representing assault victims. "I've never heard anything like that at that level.""We live in a society that doesn't teach boys or girls how to give consent, or further more how to honor consent." –Nadiah Mohair
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement