Too sad to think of pithy headline.

[TRIGGER WARNING]

I've been following the news about Brooke Bennett for a few days. Brooke, a 12 year old girl from Vermont, made the news after she was reported missing and police were apparently told that relatives believed she ran away to hook up with someone she'd met on the internet. It inspired the typical Scary Internet Predator hype in stories like this one.

On June 30th, when I first heard the story, some news outlets were reporting that the girl's uncle had been arrested on "unrelated" charges. Those charges just happened to be for the rape and sexual enslavement of another girl, from the time she was 9.

That didn't stop the police from believing that "Bennett may have been bound for a meeting with an unknown individual she had been communicating with through MySpace.com, the social networking site. On Friday, Vermont State Police director James Baker said the MySpace communications were the main focus of the probe."

That's right. The girl's uncle is a registered sex offender, and had just been arrested for raping a girl for four to five years as part of what he called a "program for sex" but the police continued to believe that Brooke had run away with someone from the internet.

The girl's body has been found, and it turns out that the uncle tried to bring her into his "sex program," and that the internet messages were planted. Excuse me while I express my lack of surprise and my complete contempt for the police department and media.

It will also surprise few feminists and anti-rape activists to know that the words "rape" and "sexual slavery" are mine, and do not appear in the news stories about the arrest of the Uncle. This is a sample of how the rape and sexual enslavement have been portrayed by our misogynist, ignorant media (emphasis mine in all):

WMUR: "The alleged victim in that case was a girl who said Jacques assaulted her over a five-year period, beginning when she was 9-years-old and ending a few weeks ago."

WCAX: "Brooke's Uncle Charged in Child Sex Ring"

Boston Herald: "Second man arrested in Vt. sex investigation" The girl told police she had been enrolled in what police called a program for sex.

KXnet.com: court papers, federal authorities say the girl's uncle brought her home to have sex with her.

The AP: The 14-year-old said she herself had been having sex with Jacques since she was 9, as part of the sex ring.

I looked through dozens of stories and never once saw the word "rape."

For the record, media and police, the following is nothing short of rape and sexual slavery.:

"In the police affidavit, it says the victim was told the president of the United States had selected her for the sex program. The president assigns a trainer, and her trainer would be Michael Jacques. And then she was abused-- almost tortured-- on a weekly basis in many different ways for the next five years. The victim testified she had met three men as part of the "Breckenridge" ring who had told her what types of sexual activity she needed to work on to graduate."